Chairman wants growth despite resignations
By Vic Monaco, Managing Editor
HIGHTSTOWN — The chairman of the depleted Economic Development Committee says it was the EDC, not Mayor Bob Patten, that requested the local panel be expanded.
Bill Gilmore also says that despite membership dropping from a full complement of seven full members to three by Jan. 1, he favors increasing the number of allowable members from seven to nine, a move that was delayed by a confused Borough Council last week.
”I don’t see that (four members as of Jan. 1) as an issue,” he said.
At the Nov. 17 meeting of the Borough Council, Borough Administrator Candace Gallagher said Mayor Patten had requested an ordinance to expand the EDC, to which he makes appointments. More specifically, she later explained, she meant the mayor had requested that it be placed on the council agenda, not that he had requested the ordinance itself.
Mr. Gilmore on Nov. 20 supplied minutes to the EDC’s October meeting that showed that that advisory panel reached a consensus to support expansion. Those minutes were supplied at Mayor Patten’s request the same day Ms. Gallagher issued a memo saying that EDC monthly meeting minutes had not been supplied to her, as required, for the entire year of 2008.
”I’ll take the heat for not submitting minutes to Candice,” said Mr. Gilmore. “She will get them in the future.”
Mr. Gilmore also assured the Herald that meeting minutes are always put together within a month after each meeting.
The EDC was created in 2005 to study matters related to business development and make recommendations to the Borough Council.
The council delayed introduction of the expansion ordinance Nov. 17 because it did not understand the thinking behind it. Mayor Patten was absent from the meeting and Councilman Ryan Rosenberg, liaison to the EDC, said he had “no idea” why the expansion was being requested. He later acknowledged that he had missed the October meeting.
Councilman Jeff Bond, a former chairman of the EDC, and Councilman-elect Mike Theokas, a current member of the EDC, said Nov. 17 that there had been talk of expansion by the EDC. But Mr. Theokas also pointed out that the membership would be down to four by Jan. 1 and indicated he didn’t understand the need for expansion.
Vince Traylor resigned earlier this fall, and Mike Wiley, Gene O’Conner and Mike Theokas are doing likewise, effective Jan. 1, according to Mr. Gilmore.
Mr. Theokas must do so, by virtue of his election to the Borough Council. Mr. Gilmore said he would like to see outgoing Councilman Rosenberg take his place. But Councilman Rosenberg said this week that he would have the time.
”I have my hands full right now as de facto executive director of the Downtown Hightstown group,” he said.

