When his last term was up in 2005, Stephen Steglitz was ready for a break from the Board of Trustees after 12 years in office.

"I was tired," said Steglitz, 63, a South Orange resident since 1988, who also noted that he wanted to give others an opportunity to govern the town.

Four years later, Steglitz—a self-described "double A personality" who runs a municipal bond department out of a Millburn office and says he's "mellowed" since leaving the Board—is throwing his hat back into the ring and making a run for the Board on the Vision Action Balance ticket with political newcomers Mary Washington Nieves and Dale Favors. As always, he says, the issues are taxes, public safety and quality of life, and he criticized the current Board for not planning better for the economic downturn.

"You’ve got to find out a way to finance the government with less dependence on property tax," said Steglitz, who advocates working with state legislators to conceptualize ways to take strain off the budget. Among the changes he'd like to see implemented is a revision to defined benefits and contributions of employee pension plans, and a measure enabling municipalities to keep funding sources hidden from contractors submitting competitive bids.

"The solution is no one should know how much money you have available to do a project," he said.

Steglitz's ticket, Vision Action Balance, came together shortly before the filing deadline on March 19, but Washington Nieves and Favors are neighbors—living on parallel streets in the vicinity of Seton Hall.

Washington Nieves, 46, a Verizon account manager and five-year South Orange resident—she previously lived in Maplewood for 11 years—was president of the Maplewood South Orange Packers Pop Warner football and cheerleading program and has been heavily involved with the Columbia High School Home and School Association. If elected, she says she'd want to focus on recreation and youth programs.

Favors, 40, works for the New York-based RBC Capital Markets and has lived in South Orange since 1998. He's a coach for his first grader son's T-ball team and once ran for Essex County Freeholder. He hopes to bring his experience in finance to bear on the budget.

"If we stay with the consistent 5 percent increase in taxes—and in some cases more—because we have to fill certain shortfalls, it’s going to eventually get to a point where there's some people making some decisions, [asking] should we live in South Orange?" said Favors.

With respect to how they would tackle the Village's budgetary shortfalls, the candidates spoke of pursuing shared service agreements with Maplewood and West Orange and reaching workable agreements with personnel. Negotiations by the current Board with five unions are underway with the object of averting or, at least, reducing, the 14 proposed layoffs of Village employees, and Favors said he'd hope to instate furloughs as an alternative to layoffs—looking to Cory Booker's proposal for Newark City Hall.

Another potential strategy to up the Village's revenues is to increase commercial ratables through a new redevelopment plan. The tax base in South Orange and Maplewood is 90 percent residential, according to Steglitz, putting an undue burden on homeowners. While he takes pride in the role the Board played during his tenure in bringing Eden Gourmet to town and filling up storefronts on Sloan Street, he noted that redevelopment has ground to a stand still.

As for the Vision Plan—a draft of which is scheduled to be released later this month by the Boston-based consultant—Steglitz agrees with the objective but not necessarily the approach.

"I don't know I would've paid for it," he said.

The election is May 12, and Vision Action Balance ticket had its kickoff fundraiser event—cocktails at the Rock Spring Club in West Orange—on Saturday night.

Editor's Note: I ran an interview with the other ticket, Pure Progress, earlier this week.