HIGHTSTOWN: Mayor plays hardball

Mayor says council members violated Sunshine Law

By Christina Whittington, Special Writer
   HIGHTSTOWN — Borough Hall has become a catalyst for individuals and groups pointing in different directions for change.
   And at the June 18 council meeting, the future location of Borough Hall once again was on the agenda.
   At the onset, Mayor Steven Kirson read a prepared statement in which he said, “I suspect that the Sunshine Laws were treaded on between the meetings of May 30 and June 4.”
   Specifically, “We have a written protocol since I have been mayor that a council member will give me a heads up prior to the meeting if they would be putting something on the agenda. This did not occur that night,” Mayor Kirson said in reference to the June 4 Borough Council meeting in which the council passed two resolutions relating to Borough Hall.
   One of the resolutions, Resolution 2012-154, requires that the council be given access to all Borough Hall information, a multi-department complex of the municipality that has remained closed since Hurricane Irene. The municipal government temporarily is working out of the Public Works building in town.
   A second resolution, Resolution 2012-153, says that the Borough Hall should remain in the center of town.
   ”For some reason, on June 4, council decided to add two resolutions without providing the public with this information,” Mayor Kirson said. “What I found so striking was that five days after the special meeting (on Borough Hall) held on May 30, when 75 percent of those who spoke that evening were in favor of moving Borough Hall outside the downtown area, this council rushed to put this (opposing) resolution on the agenda.”
   May 30, a special workshop meeting was held where residents, business owners and groups of Hightstown voiced their opinions on the future location of Borough Hall.
   Many people spoke in favor of moving Borough Hall out of the central downtown area. These speakers included Ryan Rosenberg, chairman of Downtown Hightstown; Bill Gilmore, of the Greater Hightstown East Windsor Improvement Project; Dan Buriak, chairman of the Hightstown Historic Preservation Committee; Jay Zimmer, executive director of Meadow Lakes; and Steve Miszuara, chairman of the Hightstown Planning Board.
   As previously reported by the Herald on June 15, Councilwoman Gail Doran made a motion to amend the June 4 agenda to add Resolution 2012-153, which asked for the location of the Borough Hall to be centrally located. The resolution passed with a 5-1 vote. Council President Lawrence Quattrone voted against it.
   Councilwoman Doran said at the June 4 meeting that the council felt “an undue focus on one site” in reference to the Lucas Electric Co. building, which was mentioned at the May 30 special meeting as an option to move municipal staff temporarily.
   ”We would like to see options considered within the central part of the borough,” Councilwoman Doran said on June 4.
   At that same meeting, Councilwoman Susan Bluth added Resolution 2012-154 to the agenda, requiring that the council be kept informed on all matters related to Borough Hall. This resolution passed unanimously with a 6-0 vote.
   ”These two resolutions were brought forward by two council people, and after I read the two resolutions, I was led to believe, and I read them closely, that they were actually written by a third council member,” Mayor Kirson said.
   He said the Sunshine Law considers that when “three members (are) looking at material . . . that is an effective majority.”
   The Sunshine Law, which is New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act, is designed to ensure decision-making government bodies in the state conduct business in public except in situations where exclusion of the public is needed to protect individual privacy, public safety or effectiveness of government in negotiations or investigations.
   Mayor Kirson finished his prepared statement by saying, “I bring this forward this evening not to be controversial or difficult. My goal is to focus on issues introduced by the borough.”
   Several members of the public backed the mayor.
   Hightstown resident Bill Gilmore said, “I also endorse the mayor’s comments he made earlier. I think that it was well said, and it needed to be said because the fact that this council ignored the largest percentage of the representative groups that represent the downtown district by passing the resolutions that they did — I find very appalling personally.”
   Borough resident Dan Buriak said, “You are a council, and you are a mayor (here) to work together for the betterment of the community.”
   He continued, “It is time to stop playing games behind the scenes and start working together. What you do publicly, Ms. Doran — to bring a resolution forward to thwart the very public that is coming forth to you with (its) opinion, and you make a deliberate attempt to keep (the public) out of the process — is unbelievable. We need to change the dialogue of what is going on.
   He added, “So I really hope that this tenor changes and that you all understand you are working for the borough.”
   Later on at the June 18 meeting, two new Borough Hall related resolutions were introduced. Resolution 2012-165, which would have awarded a professional services agreement for engineering Borough Hall site evaluations to Roberts Engineering Group in the amount of $7,500 was withdrawn. The evaluations could have taken place at a pair of locations in town that has been identified as possible places to move the municipal government.
   One space is the Lucas Electric building on Mercer Street, which is where the Hightstown Police Department has been temporarily relocated since Hurricane Irene. The second space is property owned by Shangle & Hunt on Broad Street, currently under attorney review with another party.
   ”There is a more fundamental question,” Councilman Robert Thibault said. “How are we going to evaluate these properties even with all this information when we don’t know what our requirements are other than something that was prepared 10 years ago? We haven’t gotten requirements. How much office space do we need? How much secure filing space do we need? How big of a room do we need for a safe? Are we going to move Public Works? What are the special needs of the Police Department (and) of the court? We don’t have any of those requirements.”
   He said, “How (can this firm) provide an estimate for renovating a building if we don’t know what we want or what we need?”
   Councilwoman Lynne Woods stated, “We need the professionals that are working with us to understand that cost is a factor; we are not looking for a Cadillac. We really need to keep this realistic.”
   Echoing the frustration that the council expressed at the June 4 meeting, Councilwoman Woods said, “I think that a lot of this confusion and chasing after our tails (is) because there is a faction of people who want Borough Hall moved to the Lucas building. As I see it, it is council’s job from the beginning to get the Borough Hall, court and police back up and running, and we have not been able to focus on that.”
   Resolution 2012-166, which was to award a professional services agreement for architectural Borough Hall Site evaluations to Perez & Radosti Associates, later was passed as an architectural needs assessment to determine how much and what kind of space the borough needs to operate.
   In the second public comment session, Borough resident J.P. Gibbons suggested another possible location for Borough Hall.
   ”If you are going to do feasibility studies, do a feasibility study that includes the building behind us,” he said, referring to the vacant rug mill property on Bank Street. “If we are going to talk about relocating the Borough Hall, then we can relocate Borough Hall by buying this building.”
   Councilwoman Selena Bibens said in closing comments, “I like the discussion we had tonight. It brought us back to, unfortunately, the beginning, but I think we are on the right path to finally being able to outline some of our needs.”
   The next council meeting is scheduled for Monday July 2, at 7:30 p.m.