By KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer
OCEAN TOWNSHIP — After suffering the costs of several special meetings held for a controversial Jewish college application, the Ocean Township Council is expected to extend the costs to future applicants.
Township Manager Andrew Brannen said during the June 23 workshop meeting that the township should amend the ordinance to stipulate that applicants who elect to fund special meetings must incur all additional costs.
“We are just going to say any additional costs incurred would be covered by the applicant because we don’t know what they would be,” he said. “In this case, we didn’t have to pay for the venue, but that could change at some point.”
Brannen said under the current ordinance applicants pay $2,500 for special meetings, but during the recent spat of special meetings for the college application on Logan Road, the township had additional costs due to the video and sound system that was needed.
During the meeting Brannen also said the township is in the process of developing a spending plan for affordable housing trust funds. He said despite the township’s overall affordable housing plan being stuck in court, the township can start using the funds derived from affordable housing projects in recent years.
“We were hoping to adopt an amended plan, including the spending plan, this summer,” he said. “With all this uncertainty with the litigation we don’t even know what our numbers would be, and if we don’t know our numbers, there is no sense amending the plan.
“We do need to get an adopted and approved spending plan because we are starting to have some money come into this trust fund, and we do want to set it so we can start reimbursing ourselves for some of the expenses we had to incur for the senior affordable projects.”
Brannen also said during the meeting that the township will host a workshop meeting for residents to discuss various tax-relief programs available. He said the meeting will likely take place in August.
“We will go through all the programs that they have,” he said.
Another project in the works for Ocean is an expansion of the municipal pool facility.
Brannen said the current plan is to remove the “kiddie pool” while expanding the facility and adding a “spray area” for children.
He said the township will be applying for Monmouth County Open Space Grant funds for the project.