By:Roger Alvarado
Landowner Dean Shepherd, a regular speaker at council meetings, said Councilman Ken Otrimski "set a bad precedent" Dec. 13 when he called on the council to amend the borough’s salary ordinance and place a $70,000 cap on the mayor’s salary, during Monday’s Borough Council meeting.
Currently, the mayor’s position is part time and pays $7,000 a year and is capped at $15,000 per year. On Dec. 13, a split council rejected the proposal, which was brought up toward the very end of the three-and-a-half-hour council meeting.
Mr. Shepherd, who said he wasn’t weighing in on whether it was the right or wrong thing for the borough to do from a business standpoint, called the proposal a "big issue for the town" and said he felt that Mr. Otrimski should have come up with a better approach.
"I didn’t think it was presented in the right way. It should have been done a different way and not at the end of the meeting without giving everyone up here advance notice," Mr. Shepherd said.
During the Dec. 13 meeting, Mr. Otrimski, who heads the borough’s Personnel Committee, said the committee had been looking into making the mayor’s position full time "down the road."
Mr. Shepherd went on to say that he felt that the way the matter was handled gave the appearance of being a "sneaky way of doing something."
Mr. Shepherd said that the proposal as presented was shortsighted because it would limit the number of people who would be potentially interested in running for mayor in the future.
Mr. Shepherd said that anyone who earns $80,000 to $100,000 and is in his or her 30s, 40s or 50s their "prime earning years" would be much less inclined to run for the position if they had to quit their current job knowing that there is no guarantee that he or she would win re-election.
According to Mr. Shepherd, the proposal as currently constituted, "discriminates" and limits the likely candidates who would run for it to those that "need a job badly or don’t have a very good job."
He also encouraged council members to research how other towns like Bound Brook and Raritan are structured before proceeding.
Following Mr. Shepherd’s remarks none of the council members commented.
On Dec. 13, Council President Ted Petrock, who also sits on the Personnel Committee, said that the committee was "eventually looking to bring in the mayor as a full-time position with a lot of increased responsibilities."
Mr. Otrimski has said the committee is intent on coming up with "a better business plan" for the borough that would save money.
He added they left the door open for reopening discussion on the matter at a later date.

