By: Gary Simeone

Susan McCartney, a Council liaison to the Chamber of Commerce and West Orange Planning Board, has recently submitted a proposal for more electronic vehicles and charging stations in the Township. 

McCartney, who has served on the Town Council since 2002 and is serving in her fifth consecutive term, said that in her role as the West Orange Sustainable Jersey Coordinator and Town Liaison to the West Orange Environmental Commission, she felt these proposals would help the community become more environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

“As part of the Environmental Commission, I wanted to find ways for us to be more energy efficient and invest in clean transportation,” said McCartney, who is the founder and owner of the First Mountain Preschool. “Some of the things we focused on at the meeting included bringing in more hybrids to our fleet of cars and looking at ways to obtain grants to introduce more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.”

McCartney said that she and another member of the Environmental Commission board attended the meeting last month via Google Zoom, and listened to a presentation by a company that specializes in EV charging.

“This company, Plugzio, who specializes in electric mobility charging, reached out to me because they wanted to give a demonstration, and it was really very interesting what they had to offer. Their approach was novel to us, where they presented the idea of placing gold charging boxes throughout our local municipal lots and streets. They estimated that the cost of these boxes could range from a price of $350 to upwards of thousands of dollars.”

As part of the Town’s Green initiative, the councilwoman said she was also considering the idea of a solar carport in the town’s municipal lot, which includes the library, Police Department and the John P. Renna House apartment buildings. 

“I chose the Town Hall municipal lot and all of the other adjacent buildings that share the lot to house these solar carports, which are essentially overhead canopies,” said McCartney. “We could introduce these carports without risking losing any of our parking spaces.”

McCartney is in her twenty-fifth year at the First Mountain Preschool, which was established in West Orange in 1997. In her time as an educator, she has designed state-wide curriculum models and has previously served as an adjunct professor in Education and Administration at Seton Hall University and Montclair State University. 

 Her long-term commitment to the West Orange community began in 2002 when she was elected to the Town Council. She has served in that capacity in 2006, 2010 & 2015. Her leadership skills earned her the position of West Orange Sustainable Jersey Coordinator, which she was elected to in 2009.