To the small business owners who open their doors in Harrison every morning,
You built the economy this town runs on. On Main Street, on Route 322, on Route 45 and on the farm lanes in between. And you pay for it every month. Rent or a mortgage. Commercial insurance. Commercial taxes. Every approval it took to open your doors.
The plan my opponent is running on changes who pays that price.
My opponent's Café & Bakery Law lets businesses open on residential property without rezoning. My opponent's own list includes restaurants, delis, cafés, bakeries, grocery stores and bars. No rezoning. No commercial lease. A competitor could open down the street from you and skip the investment you made to get here.
My opponent's More Main Street plan lets any property within a mile of a Main Street building become a storefront with apartments or offices above. Main Street works for one reason. There's only one of it. Stretch it a mile in every direction and your foot traffic stretches with it.
My opponent's parking plan lets each owner decide how much parking to build. A business that skips the lot sends its customers to the spaces yours use now.
My opponent means well. But a plan that rewards skipping the investment punishes the people who already made it.
Harrison's codes are too restrictive. Business owners have said it for years, and they're right.
This summer, Nancy Daiutolo, who owns Organic Soak on South Main Street, came to a committee meeting. She'd received a notice of violation because her sandwich board sign was a few inches too big. I read the code. It's confusing. Right there in that meeting, I committed to simplifying it, so owners like Nancy can spend their time running a business instead of decoding the rules.
In 2025 I helped bring back the Economic Development Committee after a decade without one. Six of its seats are set aside for local business owners and community stakeholders, plus one for the Mullica Hill Business Association. And when a $175,000 pedestrian-safety grant for North Main Street was running out of time, my motion kept it alive.
Fixing the codes means fixing them for the people already invested here. Not handing the advantage to whoever skips the investment.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. I'm asking for your endorsement. Your name next to mine tells Harrison that the people who built this town want it protected.
Thank you for what you've built here.
Kevin FrenchHarrison Township Committee · Column B
Experience matters. Your vote matters. Harrison matters.
Paid for by The Committee to Elect Kevin French, PO Box 28, Richwood, NJ 08074