Committee declines request
to place question on ballot
MANALAPAN — Township Commit-tee members have told a resident they will not support his request to place a nonbinding public referendum question on the November ballot.
In recent weeks, Ray Kalainikas of Sweetmans Lane asked the members of the governing body to place the following question before voters:
"Shall elucidation of land-use rights and zoning replace taxation and bonding as the proper, realistic and effective means of saving open space in the state of New Jersey?"
Essentially, Kalainikas wants Manala-pan voters to have a chance to say whether they favor spending millions of dollars to buy land and preserve it as open space or use zoning laws to preserve land at little or no cost to taxpayers.
He said that up until now the only option voters have ever been given in the form of a public question on the preservation issue is the option to spend state, county and local funds to acquire land. He maintains that the majority of voters who have approved open space funding represent a tiny fraction of the state’s residents.
Kalainikas said he believes that given the chance to vote on a plan to spend no money in order to preserve land, New Jersey voters would approve such a plan. He asked Manalapan officials to be leaders in the state and allow residents a chance to vote on the question.
The question was discussed at the committee’s July 25 meeting and again on Aug. 8 when Kalainikas brought it up during the public comment session of the meeting.
Deputy Mayor Rebecca Aaronson told Kalainikas on July 25 that she would look into the matter. Last week she told him she had pursued the issue.
"What I got in the way of answers from several people was a variation of the same thing. In theory, the use of zoning (as a means of preservation) is a good idea, but in reality, it is too complicated. It’s not that simple to put out something like the question you are proposing," Aaronson told Kalainikas.
Kalainikas said that in a way the residents of Manalapan had decided in the June primary to pursue zoning as a means of preservation when they selected Democratic Mayor Mary Cozzolino and her running mate, Beth Ward, over Committeeman Stuart Moskovitz and his running mate, Thomas Pacheco, to run for two committee seats in November.
Cozzolino and Ward have stated their support for an initiative that would rezone property to larger lot sizes as a means of controlling the scope of residential development.
"Let the people of Manalapan have that choice (to pursue zoning as a means of preservation) by voting on this referendum question," Kalainikas said.
Attorney Les Lefkowitz, sitting in for Township Attorney Matthew Giacobbe, said New Jersey municipal land-use law provides the procedure through which members of the public may state their feelings on zoning.
"The methodology is clear," Lefkowitz told Kalainikas. "Public input comes when a town’s master plan is discussed. Input is given in those hearings and then the governing body enacts or does not enact a zoning ordinance. A referendum such as the one you are proposing can be misleading. It doesn’t have the discussion or the methodology of the public hearings."