Meeting off base as way for officials to slam budget A
Was it a public meeting — to which no members of the public came?
Was it a press conference?
Or was it just strange?
You have to wonder what they were thinking on April 4 when the Township Committee of Upper Freehold called the meeting — to which the mayor of Allentown and members of the Allentown Borough Council were invited as special guests.
The meeting notice indicated that matters of concern to both towns would be discussed. Frankly, that’s a pretty vague agenda description. Vague enough that no citizens of either community bothered to attend.
We don’t think the sparse attendance by members of the public bothered the officials, however.
In reality, the members of the Borough Council and the Township Committee wanted to get a message out to the public — specifically the press, who were waiting outside — in the week before the April 18 school election that they object to the Upper Freehold Regional School District Board of Education’s proposed 2000-01 budget.
After meeting in private, members of the Borough Council and the Township Committee emerged to speak with the reporters and vent their spleens.
No Board of Education members attended the meeting, either.
Mighty curious behavior, if the members of the governing bodies of Allentown and Upper Freehold really wanted to share their concerns about the budget.
We suspect that the only two school board members who knew the real purpose of the meeting — elected officials teeing off on the budget — were the two school board members who are married to two Upper Freehold township committeemen.
It was only after the meeting ended that the officials approached the reporters — in an empty town hall — on an individual basis to discuss their concerns about the budget.
The elected officials explained that the governing bodies as a whole could not call for the budget to be rejected because to do so would put them in a compromised position if the budget is defeated by voters next week and has to be reviewed by the Borough Council and Township Commit-tee. They stressed that — at that point at least — they were speaking as individuals.
We say that’s disingenuous behavior.
If members of the two towns’ governing bodies wanted to state their views on the school budget, they should have called a press conference and not hidden behind the guise of a vaguely worded public meeting notice.
At the same time they were teeing off on the budget, some of the elected officials expressed doubt about certain school board actions, but could not provide any specific details of impropriety.
While not much about this meeting seems clear, it does seem apparent that a significant degree of mistrust currently exists between the Upper Freehold Regional school board and the governing bodies of the two communities.
The best thing these public bodies can do right now — regardless of the outcome of the budget vote next week — is to hold a joint public meeting and be clear on what it’s for: To resolve any misunderstandings that may exist and proceed with the business of funding and providing education for the communities’ children.