On Jan. 4, I attended the Upper Freehold Township Committee’s reorganization meeting and the committee meeting that immediately followed. During the latter I sat spellbound as Mayor [Stephen] Fleischacker detailed, during his privilege, his position on several topics of vital importance to this town.
He spoke at length concerning his interest in hearing and considering all views on the issues of our endless master plan revision and zoning changes, as well as his strong desire for an open and free debate and discussion on these topics.
He continued to regale those in attendance with his motivation for actively seeking a second consecutive term as mayor, a precedent that has not occurred in Upper Freehold in recent memory. There were a few residents that spoke in support of Mr. Fleischacker and lauded his accomplishments during this past year, but regretfully, the vast majority seemed unimpressed with his tenure, disappointed in his continued role as mayor and generally let down by the lack of progress over the last year on these critical issues.
Mr. Fleischacker’s statements were made all that more ironic by the fact that, not 30 minutes prior, Mr. Fleischacker decided that the best way to reinforce his philosophy of inclusion and free and open debate was to use a little known, never enacted power to appoint new members to the Planning Board without any input, discussion or dialogue from his fellow committeemen. While Mr. Fleischacker pointed out, correctly, that he has the legal authority to do this, it is an edict that a mayor of Upper Freehold has never exercised. The historic precedent was that appointments to the Planning Board were always done with the consent and majority of the committee.
This allowed for a free and open debate among the committee and allowed the opportunity for the public to hear the opinions of all the committeemen. It would appear that Mr. Fleischacker’s concern with the views and opinions of his fellow committeemen ends when the view is different from his own.
This decision apparently took the other committeemen, at least Steve Alexander and Bob Faber, by complete surprise. When questioned by Mr. Alexander as to the timing of the decision to bypass the established practice it was discovered that a ruling by the township attorney was given over the phone to Mr. Fleischacker privately that afternoon on at least one appointment. His interest in the opinions of others also seemed to have been suspended during the decision making process regarding the Planning Board’s composition, since Mr. Alexander also seemed surprised both by Mr. Search’s resignation from the board and the identity of several new appointees. In fact, Mr. Alexander pointed out that there were no names of Mr. Fleischacker’s appointments on the resolution.
Regretfully, these actions reinforce how deeply out of touch with the majority of Upper Freehold Mr. Fleischacker has become. He seems to have gone through a lot of effort to keep his appointments as secret as possible, and then do everything in his power to keep them from being debated in public. Considering that a leader leads by example, this is hardly the attitude of someone who is dedicated to an open dialogue and sincere in his desire to consider all sides.
I would have expected that Mr. Fleischacker would have seen the writing on the wall and been able to gauge the attitude of the electorate after the last year’s election, but apparently he did not want to listen to those opinions either. Remember Mr. Fleischacker, this is an election year and your term is up; and, the way things are going you will face the same embarrassing outcome Mr. [Sal] Diecidue did last year.
Tim Reilly
Upper Freehold