Wantage Twp. to introduce budget

WANTAGE-On Feb. 24, the Wantage Mayor and Committee will introduce a 2005 budget that will call for a tax increase of about 1.4 cents per $100 of assessed evaluation. Township Manage Jim Doherty said at a workshop session last week that the total budget will increase by about 6.5 percent. He said the increase is almost totally due to a state-mandated re-evaluation of property and changes in the way the town handles its debt that will ultimately result in long-term savings. The increase in taxes will be held down, Doherty said, by applying surplus revenue to the budget. In regular sesson, the board adopted changes in the zoning ordinance to require 20,000 square feet of contiguous developable land on a lot before a house may be erected. The council also discussed introducing an ordinance to institute a program of trapping, neuturing and releasing to deal with the town's feral cat population. Such a program, the board said, would be cheaper than euthanizing the animals when they are unclaimed in shelters; last year, some 200 feral cats had to be put down. The ordinance would designate volunteers to make sure individual cats and groups of cats are fed. By law, anyone who feeds a feral cat becomes responsible for that animal. Finally, the mayor and committee agreed to try to enter into an agreement to donate a surplus rescue vehicle to a community in the Dominican Republic, where it can be put to good use.