Linda Masson

Position: Sussex Borough Council

Age: 61
Political History: Sussex Borough Councilwoman since 2013, Council President 2015-present, Liaison to SCMUA 2013-present, Chairwoman of the Grant Committee 2015-present, Chairwoman of the Personnel Committee 2015-present, Chairwoman of the Water/Sewer Rate Structure Committee 2015-present, member of the DPW Committee 2013-2014, Liaison to High Point Regional High School 2013.

Occupation: : Retired, previously a stay at home Mom for 20 years. Prior to that, employed by AT&T for 16 years. As a manager, some of my positions included budget analyst in the Executive Department, systems manager in the Finance Department, and budget coordinator for the Bell System Purchased Products Division. Outside of AT&T, I was a payroll supervisor for a large nursing home and a placement counselor for a few Temporary Employment Agencies.

Education: Community College and extensive Bell System Management Training.

Family: Married to Robert 24 years, two daughters in college.

Top three issues: 1. Ownership of the Water/Sewer system needs to remain with the borough. 65 percent of our residents agreed. Late in 2014, The Water Infrastructure Protection Act became law allowing for a sale of municipal water systems without public input. This bill was passed without a press release and American Water contributed $50,000 to the Governor’s Association just prior to the bill’s passage. 2. Our water/sewer system requires intelligent management. Guided by our current, competent water/sewer engineer, we need to develop and document a long-term plan for repairing our ailing system. This has never been undertaken by any past administrations. We need to package projects in such a way as to maximize our eligibility to acquire as much grant money as possible. We need to stop spending rate payer money without first determining if there is grant money available as a financial offset. New users are requesting to be hooked up to our system. In order to accommodate this we need to complete the I&I project which was started by the previous administration but never finished. Expansion of our user base means lower costs to existing users. 3. I believe that any town holding a contract with SCMUA should select their own representative to sit on the Board of Commissioners at SCMUA. Their meetings should not be held at 3 p.m. when most of the public is unavailable to attend and their executive sessions should not take place at the beginning of their meetings. These things are clearly done to dissuade the public from attending. I believe strongly in open government and I do not like back room dealing.