VIDEO: Skudera Looks Ahead for Tinton Falls

Mayor Michael Skudera gave a comprehensive overview of the borough on Tuesday night outlining the successes and challenges his administration had encountered over the past year.

Among the challenges he enumerated to the crowded audience at the Jan. 17 council meeting, were:

• The loss of hundreds of jobs with the September ;
• School overcrowding;
• Severe weather events costing the borough hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Countering those obstacles, Skudera, who was elected in 2009, gave solutions his administration is working on, which include:

• Creating an economic development committee to bring businesses into Tinton Falls;
• Working with the school board and the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority to secure a bulding to provide additional classroom space;
• Recouping money spent on storm clean ups from FEMA in the amount of $180,000, which the mayor said was "probably one of the highest in the county."

Other highlights from Skudera's speech included:

• Borough employees took no pay raises in 2011;
• Restructuring of the police department saved the borough $700,000;
• Groundbreaking of one of the largest in the Northeast;
• Largest by the borough with preservation of 75 acres of land in southern end of town;
• Continuing to work toward with borough residents.