June 23rd Meeting Summary

On Monday night we had a very important and contentious meeting of the Verona Town Council. Here is a summary of what was discussed.

After months of waiting, the Council saw plans for a new, scaled back police and fire department building and the associated costs, which the public can view here. The new plan removes the rescue squad from the building, which resulted in a reduced square footage (55k square feet down to 42K square feet). The total cost would be $39.2 million, which has an average tax impact of $349/year.

Building a new police building is a very technical project - as the State has several requirements that are necessary to be compliant. However, I asked the professionals to take a look at the current design to make the building smaller on areas that are not required. I do believe we have opportunities to make some of the spaces more flexible to allow for multiple purposes and shrink the footprint further. I encourage you to watch this part of the meeting (starting at 35 minutes in and running for about an hour).

We may have a special meeting to discuss this project in further detail. I am committed to building a new building for the police and fire department, and I encourage these ongoing conversations and robust feedback from the public.

The second critical thing that happened at this meeting was a discussion and vote to affirm the Township's Fourth Round Housing Element and Fair Share Plan. At the top of the meeting, our professionals gave an overview of of the 4th round plan, which was approved by the Planning Board on June 19th. You can read the plan here. This plan outlines where Verona will satisfy our future affordable housing obligation, and what we think our obligation is.

The plan details that Verona's affordable housing obligation is 155 prospective units, but its "realistic development potential" is 57 units. That obligation will then be satisfied with the following redevelopment of properties:

• 320 Bloomfield Avenue (near Church Street)

• Hillcrest Farms

• Richfield Regency

• 176 Bloomfield (next to Everett Field)

• 855-885 Bloomfield Avenue (wooded area across from the Community Center)

• Approved rezoning that allows an assisted living facility at 251 Grove Avenue

• Approved rezoning on Bloomfield Avenue between South Prospect and Montrose

• Future rezoning of the entire Town Center zone (not yet approved)

• Senior housing surplus from Hillwood

Unfortunately, I voted against affirming this plan, as did Cynthia Holland. I wrote the following statement, which I read at the meeting, to explain my decision.

"I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to our professionals for their diligent work on this plan, specifically Dan Hauben of DMR and San Chavan from H2M. We have been assured that this plan adheres to the requirements mandated by the NJ State Legislature and Fair Share Housing, and I wish to acknowledge the extensive hours they dedicated in Executive Session with the Council discussing the elements of this plan.

On July 1st, I will mark my 6th anniversary as a local elected official. When I was first elected, the Council was facing significant challenges in complying with the 3rd round of affordable housing obligations. My campaign focused on transparency and strategic planning, with a commitment that for the 4th round of affordable housing plans, I would advocate for a more open and transparent process that involved residents in decisions regarding development.

The legislature enacted a law for the fourth round of affordable housing regulations with a very aggressive timeline, but one that did allow time for public participation. Additionally, it empowered local municipalities to determine suitable areas for development to meet affordable housing requirements. Municipalities like Verona were not obligated to accept every proposal presented by developers. The legislature granted us the authority to determine for ourselves sites that were optimal for development.

Regrettably, the Plan formulated by the majority members of this Council and passed by the Planning Board relinquished much of that authority and did not sufficiently engage the public. The Council majority, led by the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Councilman Roman, adopted an approach where developers situated on Bloomfield Avenue determined the projects included in the plan. The Planning Board Master Plan subcommittee on this affordable housing plan, which includes the Mayor and Planning Board Chairwoman Jessica Pearson, the Deputy Mayor’s wife, did not design a process allowing adequate time for public understanding of the plan and its projects.

In time, Verona residents will come to recognize that there were alternative strategic approaches available to Verona to meet our affordable housing requirement. We could have implemented strategies to preserve certain areas and direct development where we wanted it.

My vote today on this Plan is challenging. While I fully support the development of affordable housing and acknowledge that this plan complies with the legal and regulatory requirements set forth in the affordable housing legislation, I believe it does not represent the optimal outcome for our community.  I am disappointed that we did not capitalize on the strategic opportunity that we had in front of us. 

Many residents have been asking me what they should do now.  I encourage residents to ask questions, voice concerns, and get involved in our local government so that we can add more voices to evolve the Township’s planning approach to achieve something that works better for our community.  It was already mentioned that this plan may be amended. Don’t give up on pushing for better outcomes and demanding transparency and excellence from your local leaders.  Verona can do better.  Thank you."

After I read this statement, Mayor Tamburro and Deputy Mayor McEvoy had some very pointed comments about my decision not to vote to endorse the plan, and many of them veered into very personal territory. I encourage you all to watch the meeting for yourselves here (the conversation starts around 2 hrs into the meeting).

After the heated conversation, I was given the opportunity to respond. I reminded my peers that we have not agreed in the past on actions related to planning and development, including the vote two years ago on what professional to hire to support us (see here). Going back and reading that post, it's a shock to see what we thought we would accomplish and what has actually been done.

In addition, while my Council colleagues said otherwise, I brought up several ideas over the last few months as it relates to the affordable housing planning during our extensive conversations in closed session. I asked several times in our Council meetings in public session for a timeline for the project. I ended my comments with an observation that I think there are opportunities for all Council members to do a better job at listening to the concerns raised by others.

Last night we voted on millions of dollars of capital ordinances. Unfortunately, there was a mistake made with the largest ordinance for the projects out of our general fund, which included Everett Field. The ordinance had to be re-introduced, and a final vote will be at our next meeting on July 7th. We did approve all other capital ordinances, which will fund critical work for our water and sewer utility, pool, and some IT projects.

Under resolutions, we made an amendment to the timeline for a key project associated with the last round of affordable housing - 1 Sunset Avenue. The new timeline calls for construction to start no later than November 2026, with a completion no later than May 2029.

We also approved contracts with

• Benecard, or pharmacy benefit manager,

• DNS Media, who handles the TV station,

• LGE Event Production, which handles the summer concert series,

• Starfire, who handles the fireworks,

• USA Fit for Life, for recreation services

• Midland Supply, for water services

We accepted grants for the National Opioid Grant, Sustainable Jersey, and the NJDHS Age Friendly Grant. We also approved all of our plenary retail distribution and consumption licenses.

We did not go into Executive Session.

I encourage residents to send us comments and feedback on any matter by contacting us all here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.