Wantage residents reject Sussex merger

It’s not going to happen. Wantage residents overwhelmingly shot down the proposal to merge with Sussex Borough. Following a year of public meetings, extensive study and neighborhood discussions over whether Wantage Township and Sussex Borough should join their governments together, Election Day saw the measure go down in defeat. For municipal consolidation to win approval, a majority of residents from both towns had to support the measure. According to unofficial results from the Sussex County Clerk’s office, Wantage residents voted against consolidation 3,097 to 918. Residents of Sussex Borough voted to approve a merger by a vote of 291 to 211. County officials were still collecting emergency ballots and provisional votes, though those ballots weren’t expected to substantially change the overall results, said Angela Thies, administrative secretary to Sussex County Clerk Erma Gormley. Thies said the earliest the results would be made official is Nov. 6. Local voices Residents from both towns who were interviewed at the polls offered mixed reactions to the proposal. Sussex Borough resident Diane Dykstra voted for consolidation at the Sussex Fire Department on Loomis Avenue since she believes the two towns “should do it now while the (state) government is willing to give us funding.” Members of a 10-person municipal consolidation study commission selected from the two towns claimed that residents from both communities were poised to recover more than $585,000 in annual combined tax savings if the two towns were to merge. For her part, Dykstra said she was concerned that the state may force the two towns to consolidate without offering any tax breaks or financial incentives. But some Wantage residents such as Nick Loizzi felt that any tax savings should have been distributed more evenly between residents of the two towns. “There’s no benefit to the Wantage Township taxpayer,” said Loizzi, who voted against the measure at the Beemerville Fire Department on County Route 519. “There was more benefit to Sussex Borough taxpayers. If it was a flat change in taxes for both towns, I might’ve voted for it.” Wantage resident Mike Harris voted for consolidation. “I thought it would save us some bucks in the long run,” he said. The New Jersey legislature is considering a bill that would require “doughnut hole” municipalities like Sussex Borough to merge with larger towns that surround them. But for now, at least, the two governments will remain separate.