Members hope to get home earlier
By:Roger Alvarado
A few years ago borough officials instituted a stringent five-minute rule upon all members of the public who turn up to comment during council meetings.
At the time, the move was made to try and prevent meetings from getting out of control and turn into long drawn out shouting matches lasting into the wee hours.
Now, they’re taking things one step further.
During Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Angelo Corradino said that because of the "popularity" of last week’s special meeting, which started at 6 p.m. because the previous week’s meeting was postponed because of snow, he wanted to discuss the possibility of moving up the council’s regularly scheduled meetings to 6 p.m.
"We’ve had a couple requests," Mayor Corradino said.
After a bit of discussion and a request by Councilman Tom Weiss to schedule the meetings at 6:30 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., council members unanimously agreed.
Consequently, all council meetings will now take place Mondays at 6:30 p.m.
"We were really talking about it," Mayor Corradino said after the meeting. "I think it will work out well."
Monday’s meeting incidentally lasted a whopping 21 minutes.
"When you have short meetings like this everyone can go home and watch the Mets all summer," Mayor Corradino said with a smile.
All kidding aside, the mayor says he thinks that the earlier meeting time will allow council members to be home to be with their families instead of getting out late when meetings last long.