Stan Czyzyk attended Rutgers New Brunswick and earned a bachelor’s degree in management science and information systems. Subsequently, he spent 15 years in consulting roles, and recently took a role as the VP of strategic initiatives for a wealth management company.
A common mantra you hear from the right side of the political spectrum, whether it’s local politics or national politics, is that “the government should be run like a business.” But Stan Czyzyk isn’t buying it.
“I think the president we have now ran on ‘I’m going to run government finances like business,’” he said, “[but] I agree with [fellow Democratic town council candidate] Linda [Goldman] that they don’t.”
He explained further: “What’s the return on investment for opening a park bathroom so that a mother doesn’t have to change a diaper on a park bench? There’s no dollar and cents for that,” he said. “There’s no immediate direct payback for opening a bathroom. The factor is just the cost if you look at it in just dollars and cents. But there’s a second and third degree benefit. There’s a softer benefit.”
The softer benefit Czyzyk is talking about are things such as improved satisfaction from residents and increased property values. His point is towns don’t directly make money off parks and planting trees, but indirectly, those sorts of things help draw in new neighbors.
There’s “been a focus on [the fact that] we have a lot of debt, and we need less of it. All true. All good. All agree,” Czyzyk said, referring to the current council’s decision to aggressively pay down debt incurred by members of the previous council. “If you [compare] it to a household, you’re not finding ways to grow the revenue so you’re not making the investments in growing the revenue. Think about somebody in a family in that situation. They’re paying too much toward the mortgage too quickly so maybe they couldn’t afford to go back to school. And because they couldn’t afford to go back to school, they couldn’t get a higher paying job. So now all the sudden you’re kind of just chasing your tail a little bit.”
But it costs money to make money, and Czyzyk knows that to grow these revenue sources, the township will have to spend money on them. Despite this, Czyzyk, along with Goldman and the third Democratic town council candidate Kelly Clark, are committed to not raising taxes. They intend to bring back more services, such as increased brush collection and better snow removal, which they will pay for by paying down the debt less aggressively — not by raising taxes.
Czyzyk feels a great desire to give back to his town. He grew up next door in Tabernacle and graduated from Shawnee High School. He attended Rutgers New Brunswick and earned a bachelor’s degree in management science and information systems. Subsequently, he spent 15 years in consulting roles, and recently took a role as the VP of strategic initiatives for a wealth management company.
“For me, this campaign is not about litigating the past,” he said. “I may have made some different choices [than the current council], but I respect the decisions the current council made to deal with the issues created by the councils prior. For me, it’s about looking forward.”
