Business View Magazine - June 2016 131
owners and renters, to clean up their city. East Orange
was once known as the cleanest city in the country –
back in 1967 through ’73. But we also had one of our
lowest crime rates in that time frame. And so we have
this adage that ‘a clean city plus a safe city equals a
profitable city.’
“We’re doing everything from cleaning up vacant lots
to cleaning up lots that are currently occupied but not
in compliance with code. We’ve established a vacant
and abandoned properties taskforce and in two year’s
time, we’ve generated close to $2 million in revenue
– and that’s revenue that’s been left on the table, be-
cause one of the laws that we’re using was enacted in
2004. It had gone unused by the prior administration
for all that time, leaving much needed revenue on the
table, but more importantly not contributing to the im-
provement of the community, but rather allowing it to
deteriorate more and more.”
Two major municipal initiatives exemplify Taylor’s de-
votion to the notion of taking care of the assets that
the city already has. “East Orange owns and operates
its own water utility – the East Orange Water Com-
mission,” he begins. “When I took office, the city had
a $10 million deficit. We’ve got an annual budget of
about $135 million, so a $10 million deficit was a
large hurdle to have to get over. The Water Commis-
sion accounted for about $3 million of that deficit. It
was plagued by mismanagement, as well as criminal
activity, wherein the former Director and Executive Di-
rector were indicted and subsequently convicted and
sent to prison. That gives you a snapshot of what we
were dealing with. But rather than take the easy way
out and sell the asset, as many urban communities
do, or have done, we took a more bold and strategic
approach and said, ‘How can we turn this from a loss-
leader to a revenue generator for our city; how can we
provide safe and clean drinking water to our custom-
to increase municipal minimum wage to $15/hour
