During last week’s Holmdel Township Committee meeting, Mayor Serena DiMaso chided a large and restless group of residents for not knowing the facts regarding a proposal by the town’s engineering firm to expand existing sewer service areas.
It was a curious complaint, since many of the residents she criticized came to the meeting because they were looking for answers themselves.
Elected officials have an obligation to publicly explain policy, not simply dictate it. Yet despite a high level of public interest, Mayor DiMaso seemed more concerned about speed than clarity. She declined to have specific public hearings to vet the issue and allow for expert testimony. She did not require Ed Broberg of T&M Associates, the town’s engineering consultant, to deliver a public presentation to explain why new areas in town need to be opened to the prospect of sewers. She neither distributed materials to show the location of the planned changes, nor did she have a map on hand to outline the affected neighborhoods.
Mayor DiMaso even bypassed the Holmdel Planning Board, which should have reviewed the T&M proposal first, because its recommendations appear to impact the town’s master plan. The board would have then taken the time to conduct hearings, collect public comment, and offer a recommendation for the Township Committee to consider.
Mayor DiMaso recently wrote that “All of us working together, in the spirit of bipartisanship, [can] ensure that Holmdel retains its status as a pretty, charming and peaceful village on the hills of northern Monmouth County.”
On this particular night, she fell notably short of achieving that goal.
Mayor DiMaso, a Republican, never explainedwhyDemocrat Janet Berk was barred from participating in the discussion by telephone, a common practice in past meetings. The committee’s second Democrat, Larry Fink, was also forced off the dais, due to a conservative interpretation of the state’s conflict of interest rules.
Committeeman Fink works for Green Acres, an agency within the Department of Environment Protection (DEP). The Monmouth County Planning Board and the DEP had sought clarification about Holmdel’s sewer service areas.
But Fink’s job has nothing to do with sewers. He works to preserve open space in northwestern New Jersey; his territory doesn’t
include Holmdel. How he would personally benefit from participating in this discussion about sewers is a complete mystery.
Unlike last year’s debate regarding bond money to put sewers in one existing neighborhood, last week’s actions were broader in scope, exposing undeveloped regions throughout the town for potentially more dense development.
Simply put, sewers allow builders to place houses or office buildings on lands normally not suitable for construction in Holmdel.
Sewer-friendly policies, no matter how good their intentions, encourage the type of development that can lead to more homes, more congestion and greater strain on our current infrastructure and local environment — not to mention greater township expenses and higher taxes.
Last week’s rush to add new sewer areas within Holmdel reaffirms the suspicion that the DiMaso administration seems committed to grant neighborhoods the right to sewers without carefully considering communitywide repercussions.
While we all recognize Mayor DiMaso has the votes to push through any agenda that she wishes, we simply ask her to show more patience when we ask her to explain why.
Michael Sockol is a resident of Holmdel