June 22nd Meeting Summary

The Verona Town Council met on Monday, June 22nd. Here are a summary of the highlights of the meeting.

By far the most important action the Council took was to appoint an interim Councilmember to fill Councilwoman Holland's seat until the November election. Congratulations to Corey Schor for receiving three votes to fill Cynthia's role until the election.

I abstained from voting on making this appointment as one of the candidates for the appointment was Kate Hartwyck, Deputy Director of Essex County Parks. As I am currently running for Essex County Commissioner, At Large, if I succeed in winning in November I will be part of the Board that has oversight responsibilities over Ms. Hartwyck's department. I did not want to cast a vote in this appointment process that may create the appearance of conflict either now or in the future.

With that said, I did participate in the interview process, asking questions on fiscal management and the multi-million dollar replacement project for our police and fire station. The Council did not coordinate our questions before the interviews, so I found it interesting what was asked by my peers. I recommend that members of the public watch the replay of this part of the meeting, as all four candidates brought interesting ideas to the table.

Another significant action that we took was to table a resolution to enter into an agreement with The Claridges II, LLC to purchase 10 acres of undeveloped land for a total of $3.7 million. A group of residents from the Claridges came and provided significant public comment on their concerns with the process by which the Claridge boards voted to approve this land purchase. For now the matter is tabled while these residents talk with their respective governing bodies. If this matter is brought back to the Council, voting on entering into the agreement is just the first phase of a two phase process. The second phase would be voting on an ordinance to purchase the property and use Verona's Open Space Trust fund to finance it.

Highlights of other actions at the meeting include:

• We passed a bond for another new ambulance for $390K.

• We passed new regulations on the burning of dangerous material garbage and vegetation.

• Grants were accepted from Sustainable Jersey for a composting project, from Comcast to help fund new technology in Council chambers, and the opioid settlement for drug prevention programs.

• We renewed our plenary retail and consumption licences for the year.

• Establishing an agreement with the Board of Education to allow for the sharing of vehicles.

In new business, we discussed adding the new Lakeside Place parking lot to our official lists of parking lots in the Township so that long term parking permit holders can start parking there. This ordinance will be introduced at the next meeting.

Our next meeting is on Monday, June 6th. Any comments on any matters before the Council should be sent to all five members using this convenient form: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform