I read with disgust the letter regarding the Marlboro Planning Board’s questionable approval of the house of worship on Vanderburg Road. I, too, attended the hearings, heard the inappropriate comments and spoke against the proposal. I was not a bit surprised by the outcome.
Vanderburg Road has long been somewhat of a cottage industry for the attorney representing the house of worship in their application for relief from current zoning and escape from pending law.
It became apparent from his badgering of residents speaking against the proposal that the attorney was using intimate knowledge of the residents, gained through his employment by a major builder closing the sales of the residents’ homes, homes built with what are now seemingly questionable approvals.
Just last fall in another application, this same attorney was advised by long, long time Planning Board attorney Mr. Dennis “Hear No Evil, See No Evil” Collins, that the application would not move forward since the Township Council had expressed an intent to enact an ordinance that would impact the site in question. (A similar situation with the Zoning Board of Adjustment led to a lawsuit being initiated by the mayor).
The attorney simply ap-peared before council members the next time they met and requested they alter their legislative course of action and allow him time to see his application through and it appears that some deal was struck since the application was approved at the next Planning Board meeting.
And heeeeee’s back with another proposal on the lot adjacent to the house of worship. Oh yeah, that ordinance which was to help ensure the quality of our drinking water with extended buffers for watershed streams … is still on hold.
The mayor, who sits on the Planning Board, who I want to assume supports protecting our drinking water, in an act of political cowardliness did not vote on the church’s application and I doubt he’ll vote on the next Vanderburg Road application.
It all just creates the appearance that while the Kleinberg administration was “cleaning house” they came across some old shoes just too comfortable to get rid of.
Paul Schlaflin
Marlboro