Requirement to meet once a month remains
By Sean Ruppert, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN After a six-week-long back and forth, the Borough Council seemed to settle its debate this week on how often the Economic Development Committee should be required to meet, defeating an ordinance that would have lightened the load by a 5-1 vote.
The committee’s bylaws which will remain unchanged call for the group to hold public meetings once a month, a requirement the defeated ordinance would have altered to “as needed.”
The EDC met for the first time in 2009 on March 26 at which time it reappointed Bill Gilmore as chairman. Even with the once-a-month requirements, that meeting was the first since October. However, there is another meeting of the panel set for April 23.
The seven-member panel has four new members this year. One of whom Chris Emigholz was only appointed Monday.
The issue proved a contentious one from the time it was first brought before the council March 2 and caused shifting opinions among the borough’s elected officials. Council President Walter Sikorski changed his position on the matter twice.
Three different votes on the meeting requirement came back with three different results. The council sided against introducing the ordinance March 2 by a 4-2 vote with Mr. Sikorski joining council members Isabel McGinty, Dave Schneider and Larry Quattrone in voting against it.
The measure was brought back March 16 and resulted in a 3-3 tie that was broken by Mayor Bob Patten, who formed the committee in 2005. Mr. Sikorski voted with Councilmen Jeff Bond and Mike Theokas both former EDC members to introduce the ordinance, saying that after reviewing the matter, he felt it would simply give the members flexibility.
However, in the vote to formally adopt the rule change Monday, both Mr. Sikorski and Mr. Bond changed their positions and voted against the ordinance, leaving Mr. Theokas as the only member still supporting it.
Mr. Sikorski cited public reaction and the fact the panel had begun meeting again as the primary reasons for reverting back to his original position.
”It seems like in the past few weeks the EDC has really come alive,” he said Monday.
The lessening of the meeting requirement was requested by some EDC members. Committee members Mike Vanderbeck and Mr. Gilmore both appeared at council meetings in March to support the change to “as needed” meetings. They both said the Borough Council had not given the committee a specific task, and that without one, there was no reason to meet.
Mr. Vanderbeck also said March 2 that some of the EDC members had felt frustration at the fact some of their ideas were not taken up by the council.
At least one of those ideas was likely the EDC’s opposition to an ordinance that would allow the owner of the former rug mill on Bank Street to pay the borough $350,000 instead of abiding by a previous requirement to renovate the nearby municipal building. The council initially rejected that ordinance but approved it in October.
Mr. Theokas said the proposed meeting change would not prevent the group from meeting and could lead to it meeting even more if requested by the council.
”I don’t see the correlation between the number of meetings they have and their productivity,” Mr. Theokas said Monday.
The opponents of the change Ms. McGinty the most outspoken of them argued the EDC still should be meeting and looking for economic opportunities even if it is not given a specific task. Ms. McGinty, along with Mr. Schneider and Mr. Quattrone, said on several occasions that if the current membership did not want to meet, then they would rather fill the committee with new members than change the bylaws.
Mr. Quattrone said March 16 that lessening the required meeting schedule would ultimately lead to the dissolving of the committee.
”Shouldn’t we keep this body meeting?” Ms. McGinty argued before the vote Monday.
Ms. McGinty also said Monday that the committee should at least meet several times with its new membership so it can decide if it wants the change in requirements.

