Resident challenges meeting

Nancy Prohask might file a civil complaint

By: Bill Greenwood
   MONROE — A township resident is challenging action taken at a July 16 emergency Township Council meeting.
   Nancy Prohaska, of Perrineville Road, said Monday that she would file a civil complaint seeking to reverse actions taken at the meeting if the council does not rescind the actions or explain why they required the council to hold an emergency meeting to deal with them.
   Township Business Administrator Wayne Hamilton said the meeting was held because giving the 48 hours notice required for a regular meeting would have delayed an archaeological study in Thompson Park and cost taxpayers more money.
   However, Ms. Prohaska said the meeting was illegal because it was not properly advertised according to the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act, which states that notice must be provided 48 hours before a meeting except in an emergency. It must be posted in at least one public place reserved for such announcements, sent to two newspapers and filed with the clerk of the municipality.
   Ms. Prohaska said she does not think actions taken at the meeting were emergencies and that the council could have given 48 hours notice for the meeting.
   The council called the July 16 meeting to award an $82,976 contract to Richard Grubb and Associates, of Cranbury, to conduct additional archaeological research on a 35-acre parcel of Thompson Park where the Board of Education wants to build a new high school. The new work was ordered July 5 by the state Department of Environmental Protection to determine whether the Bethel Mission was located on the parcel.
   The mission was an 18th-century community of Leni Lenape converted to Christianity by Presbyterian minister David Brainerd.
   The council also increased its contract with the company for its original study by $13,571, to $57,205. That study concluded in June that the mission was not located on the site of the proposed 365,000-square-foot high school.
   The DEP is expected to grant approval for a land swap between Monroe and Middlesex County if it is determined that the mission was not located on the school site, which is protected by state Green Acres restrictions. The swap, in which Monroe would trade 175 acres of undeveloped land for the Thompson Park parcel, was granted conditional approval by the State House Commission in January 2006. Voters approved an $82.9 million referendum for the high school project in December 2003.
   Ms. Prohaska is a member of Park Savers, a local group seeking to stop construction of the school in the park. She also lives across the street from the site.
   Township Administrator Wayne Hamilton said the meeting was necessary because waiting any longer to award the contract would have delayed Grubb and Associates’ survey and the possible approval of the land swap, which would need to occur by early October in order for the Board of Education to hold an additional referendum for increases in the school’s cost. Grubb and Associates began the new survey July 17, and it is expected to be complete of next week.
   "They were able to start right away, so we deemed it an emergency," he said. "It would have cost the taxpayers money to delay."
   According to New Jersey League of Municipalities staff attorney Deborah Kole, the state Open Public Meetings Act allows emergency meetings to be called to deal with matters of such importance that a delay would cause substantial harm to the public interest.
   Three-quarters of the members present must vote to hold the meeting, and the discussion must be limited to the emergency matters, she said. The body holding the meeting also must provide a statement in the minutes of the meeting explaining why an emergency meeting needed to be called.
   Ms. Kole said notice for emergency meetings must be provided to the public as soon as possible.
   Assistant Township Attorney Peg Schaffer said notice of the meeting’s proceedings was sent to newspapers as soon as possible. The Cranbury Press received notice on the morning of July 17.