The Helmetta Borough Council unanimously moved to close the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter and took a 4-1 vote of no confidence in Mayor Nancy Martin.
The council also introduced the 2015 municipal budget, which totals nearly $2.1 million and calls for a tax increase.
The vote of no confidence, which is largely symbolic, was moved at the April 22 meeting by Councilwoman Yvette Bruno and seconded by Councilman Peter Karczewski.
Bruno said she requested the vote because of a climate of “political interference” that she said the mayor has created.
“There is political interference with every aspect of the Police Department, Fire Department and the committees,” Bruno said in a prepared statement. “You’re not acting on behalf of our residents. You lack leadership, and you don’t trust the integrity of most of the council members — only the ones that are your puppets.”
Bruno called for Martin to step down, describing the borough government as a “dictatorship.”
Councilmen Joseph Perez and Chris Slavicek joined Bruno and Karczewski in favor of the vote of no confidence. Councilwoman Denise Estrada cast the sole dissenting vote. Councilman Vincent Asciolla was absent.
Martin responded to the vote by stating, “The truth will come out when the truth comes out.”
Following the meeting, Martin said, “I would expect this from Yvette Bruno.”
Martin and Bruno have clashed over problems surrounding the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter. The shelter was quarantined by the Middlesex County Department of Health in November following a joint inspection with the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA), which found that substandard conditions had not improved since a prior inspection.
The NJSPCA subsequently took control of the shelter, removing its director and assistant director from their positions. The shelter’s animal population was moved out by mid-December, and the facility has remained closed.
Borough Attorney David Clark said the vote of no confidence has no actual effect on the borough government.
“A ‘no confidence’ vote is something that is derived from Great Britain in Parliament,” Clark said. “Basically, it has no effect here because the mayor is an elected official, but it is sending, I guess, a message to the mayor, if the council adopts it, that the council has no confidence in the mayor.”
Clark said such a censure has no force of law.
The council introduced the 2015 budget, which is scheduled for a public hearing and adoption at a special meeting on May 5.
Perez, chairman of the borough’s Finance Committee, said it was an “extremely difficult year” and that the budget will include a $57.55 increase in municipal taxes on the average home.
In a bid to find future savings, the council voted unanimously to close the animal shelter and eliminate all professional positions associated with it. Perez said the closure would allow the borough to use about $20,000 for tax relief. That money was previously kept in a fund for the purchase of an animal control van.
“We were not pleased about having to pass on an increase, but with the cost of health care and all the other contracts up for negotiation, we were happy to be within the appropriations and levy caps,” Perez said. “We’re hoping that next year will be better.”
The tax levy is proposed at $1,289,845, which is up about $49,000 over last year’s levy.
The owner of a home valued at the borough average of $205,545 would pay $1,420 in annual municipal taxes, which represents a 2.8 percent increase. If the budget is approved, the tax rate will rise from 66.2 cents to 69 cents per $100 of assessed value.
This budget figure does not include school, library or county taxes.
A primary driver of the tax increase is the debt service owed on the animal shelter building, according to Perez. He said the monthly payments would now decrease from $10,000 to $5,000. The borough owes roughly $1.5 million on the outstanding bond, which financed refurbishment of the building.
“We don’t want to ignore the debt,” Perez said. “While there is an increase, it allows us to pay some of the debt while we figure out what we’re going to do with the building.
“We’re obviously not going to reopen the shelter, but we want to find an alternative use … that justifies paying the debt service.”
The borough received no responses to a request for proposals for alternative uses of the shelter building on Main Street. The request period ended in March.
According to Perez, strategies to stabilize taxes in the coming year would include the sale of available assets such as excess vehicles leftover from shelter operations, and taking advantage of opportunities to finance borough projects over a longer term.