Tom has lived in Berkeley Heights since 2005 and raised two children here. He has served on the Boy Scout Troop 368 committee and worked on the Berkeley Heights marching band’s pit crew.

An engineer’s training and a technologist’s habits

Tom trained as a chemical engineer. That field studies how fluids move, how treatment processes work and what happens when a system runs past capacity. In Berkeley Heights, that describes a sewer plant facing roughly $40 million in projects, according to the township’s own budget presentation. It also describes a storm drain in a hard rain.

He then spent more than two decades building technology for major financial firms:

  • He led development teams behind foreign-exchange trading technology at Société Générale.
  • He wrote software for a credit-derivatives team at Goldman Sachs.
  • He was chief technology officer of MASS Exchange, where he helped design and build an advertising futures exchange.

In that work, a wrong number costs real money. He reads a town budget the same way: find the assumption carrying the weight, then test it. He also has a second degree in international business.

He won’t replace the township’s licensed engineers, finance officers or attorneys. He’ll ask them the next question, on the record, before the vote.

Opening up Town Hall

In 2016, Tom started live-streaming Council meetings so neighbors could watch from home. By early 2017, the township was streaming its own meetings. He then published a proposed Berkeley Heights Sunshine Act on public access to committee meetings and public notice. He has served on the township’s Recycling Task Force and on the board of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association.

What he’ll fight for

  • Roads, drainage and the sewer plant come first.
  • Checking the township’s finances before it borrows another dollar.
  • No new PILOT deals and no extensions of existing ones.
  • Meeting affordable-housing obligations with fewer total apartments where the law and the numbers allow, and welcoming the right commercial investment.
  • Strong public safety.
  • Public records residents can actually find.

Accountability you can check

Tom has already published how residents can hold him accountable:

  • Quarterly reports on infrastructure and PILOTs.
  • Supporting documents posted before major decisions.
  • A plain-English explanation of every vote he casts.

For the sewer plant, he wants residents to see:

  • what has been spent
  • what is still committed
  • what it will cost to finish
  • how the equipment is tested
  • what work remains

He has also put his first 90 days in writing:

  • Day 30: a public checklist of available records and open questions.
  • Day 60: proposals for financial review and reporting.
  • Day 90: a public progress report on responses, proposals, votes and next steps.

Not another automatic yes vote

One Council member can’t set policy alone. One member can read the documents, ask the next question, and explain every vote to the people who pay for it. That’s the job Tom is running for.

His positions, articles and supporting public records are all at TomForTown.com. Fact-check him.

Edmund Tom Maciejewski is a candidate for Berkeley Heights Township Council in the November 3 general election.

Background sources