Get To Know Morris Township Committee Candidate Cathy Wilson

Editor's Note: Patch sent out questionnaires to every candidate who filed a petition of candidacy by the deadline. We sent them to the email addresses registered as the official campaign emails at the County Clerk's Office. We will run the responses in the order they were received with no edits. Those candidates who did not receive a questionnaire should double check their spam folders, or contact russ.crespolini@patch.com for a form.

Name:

Cathy Wilson

Age (as of Election Day)

68

Position Sought

Morris Township Committee

Party Affiliation

Democratic

Family

Two grown children, 3 grandchildren, and another on the way

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

BA in English from Washington University (St. Louis); MA in Special Education from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; MA in Educational Leadership, National Louis University, Wheeling, IL; MS in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, NYC.

Occupation

Now retired after 30 years of experience as an educator

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Currently completing my first 3-year term as a member of the Morris Township Committee. Was elected by my fellow Committee members to serve as Deputy Mayor in 2019 and Mayor in 2020.

Campaign website

Cathy and Bud for Committee.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

My passion for decades has been to encourage active citizen participation and practice it myself. My original reason for running is I did not take kindly to being ignored, dismissed, and ridiculed by some of my predecessors when I attempted to work with them on issues that were important to me as a resident. I knew I could do a better job of serving our community, and my record over the last three years has proven that to be true. I’m running now to continue the progress we’ve made on so many different fronts including taxes, communication, the environment, transportation, and how we work with land use issues.
The single most pressing issue facing our community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The single most pressing issue facing our community is dealing with all of the unprecedented challenges COVID continues to present, not just for us, but for every town in NJ.
This is what I intend to do about it: Stay the course. Apply the lessons learned from the last several months. Stay focused on making decisions that strike the right balance between health, safety, economic, social, and emotional concerns. Keep residents informed on what’s going on.
I’m proud of our track record in dealing with the unprecedented challenges, uncertainties, and difficult decisions COVID has presented for all of us. This experience has been a valuable training ground in dealing with the full array of maddening considerations COVID will continue to present in the next several months if not longer.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

The single most critical difference is that I am the only candidate with a strong record of accomplishments to run on.
I find it telling that, for the first time ever, the Republican candidates have refused to face their Democratic opponents – and the public – in a Candidates Forum.
Perhaps that’s because there’s such a clear mismatch in our qualifications. I have an excellent record of accomplishments on many different issues including the only topic our opponents appear to have any ideas on: taxes.
My record on MUNICIPAL TAXES includes one year of DECREASE and two years of keeping them FLAT.
Our Republican opponents do not even attend meetings of the Township Committee (or any of our other Boards). Their literature includes nothing about topics on which I have a strong record of accomplishments including especially the environment, transportation, and land use issues.
My running mate, Bud Ravitz, has not served in elected office before, but he did an excellent job connecting with residents when he ran last year and lost to long-term Republican icon Peter Mancuso by only 8 votes. Bud’s special interest is environmental issues – a subject which I have never seen any previous Republican candidate even mention.
No wonder our Republican opponents refuse to participate in a Candidates Forum with us. It appears to me that the facts of our respective records is not something they’re eager to share.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

Communication and transparency have been signature issues for me for years. It’s only been in the last two years (since Dems took the majority) that I’ve been able to make any real progress on three other issues that have also been important to me for years: the environment, transportation, and land use issues.
Environment: In 2019, we established the Energy/Environment/Sustainability Standing Committee which ensures, for the first time, active Township Committee (TC) involvement in environmental issues. The TC’s active involvement (which I lead) has had a dramatic impact on the number and range of issues our Environmental Commission (EC) is working on. Through such means as ordinance approvals, outreach, educational activities, and research, these are just some of the issues we have taken steps to address: energy reduction, plastic bags, bamboo, invasive species, EV charging stations, tree removal, composting, stormwater management.
The involvement of our TC in working with environmental issues is a HUGE change from the past. I could not be more proud of the work our EC is doing on behalf of our community – and our environment!
Transportation: In 2019, I led the effort to develop the ordinance that created our Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC). TAC provides a forum for residents and professionals to work together to develop new and improved ways to support walking, bicycling, driving, and parking in our community.
TAC has taken on many projects in each of these areas. One of TAC’s benefits I am especially proud of is it provides a forum for addressing particular neighborhood situations in ways that give residents a whole new perspective - and voice - in working with all the considerations that go in to finding viable solutions for their presenting concerns.
Establishing TAC, outlining its scope of work (which is HUGE), and getting it up and running on doing its work is one of my proudest achievements over the last three years.
Development and Land Use Issues: Development is a HUGE concern for everyone. And with good reason: Our roads are saturated with traffic. Our schools are bursting with students. The last thing we need is projects that are driven more by the profit motive than the needs and interests of our community.
The truth is that we cannot stop developers from continuing to submit proposals. But we can (and in my opinion should) build our capacity as a community to deal with development proactively and from a position of strength. I have MANY ideas for how we can do that. Some highlights include:
In working with development, the #1 most important goal to me is building trust with residents. Trust builds when residents know they can count on their elected officials to share information and communicate in ways that are clear, honest, informative, transparent, and timely. I have worked VERY hard to do this in the past. I pledge to continue this as a top priority in the future.
It’s also very important (and smart) for us to be proactive in envisioning the kinds of proposals we would – and would NOT – like to see in our town. We need to work together to establish our vision and our voice as a community such that developers see their work as a collaborative effort that responds to our community’s needs and interests, not just their own preferences.
Given my experience both as a resident and an elected official, as well as my training and background in working with conflict resolution, I feel particularly well qualified to lead our community in positive and constructive ways as we work with land use and development issues going forward. This is a topic for which my special interest in welcoming and supporting active, informed resident participation is an especially good fit.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Putting aside the accomplishments just mentioned, the one accomplishment that best reveals what I stand for is my work in singlehandedly bringing video of our governing body meetings to Morris Township starting in 2015. That was no easy feat. In addition to the technical challenges alone (which were daunting), the governing body at the time actively opposed my efforts.
I stayed with it because I knew it was the right thing to do. It was clear to me that a community of our caliber should offer video of our meetings, not because it would attract large audiences, but rather as a tool for promoting transparency and accountability.
Fast forward to today: responsibility for providing video coverage of our meetings has finally shifted to the Township. The piece of this journey I’m most proud of is persisting in the face of significant obstacles to accomplish something I really believe in my heart serves the best interest of our community. That’s who I am. That’s what I do. And that’s what you can count on me to continue doing in the future.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

A quote by Mother Teresa that especially resonates during this pandemic: “I know God will never give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much!”

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

Everything I do as an elected official is colored by my passion to support active, informed citizenship. Keeping the majority on our Township Committee is vital to ensuring that the work we’ve only just begun to accomplish continues in the days ahead.