In Brick, Agendas Become A Sore Subject At Council Meetings

Sometime Friday, the Brick Township Council agenda for Tuesday’s meeting will be distributed to the members of the council, township administration and anyone else who is interested in the topics to be discussed at the meeting.

Most of the time, the items on the agenda are fairly routine: bill payments, resolutions granting approvals for special events, tax refunds, and the like.

In recent weeks, the content of the agenda and its availability have become a point of conflict at the council meetings, sparking complaints from residents about a lack of transparency, culminating with Council President Paul Mummolo telling a resident to sit down during the final public comment session of the night at the last meeting.

That resident, George Scott, a council regular who frequently questions expenditures by the town, and Mummolo had clashed at the April 21 meeting over the addition of the return of nearly $500,000 to Brick Standard, the developer of the solar field at French’s Landfill.

The solar project has peeved Scott, who has repeatedly said the township should have fought harder for changes to the contract, which has left taxpayers on the hook for items Scott feels should be paid by the developer.

But peeves about the solar project have led to a much larger conflict between Scott and Mummolo, over what is on the agenda and when that information is available -- a conflict that reached the boiling point at the last meeting.

It was objections raised by Scott at the April 7 council meeting that led, in part, to the council delaying action until the following meeting on the release of nearly $500,000 in loan funds to the developer, Brick Standard. Scott objected in part because he wanted to see the town use the funds as a bargaining chip to get the developer to give the town a better rate on the electric generated by the solar field.

The trouble arose, however, when the resolution appeared on the agenda for the April 21 meeting. Scott, who had picked up a draft copy of the agenda that did not include the resolution, objected to its inclusion. Mummolo then explained it was put on the agenda after Scott had picked up the draft. A debate ensued, with Scott complaining that posting the final agenda on Friday did not provide residents with enough time to look into items that they might have concerns about.

It was the May 5 meeting, however, where the debate went to a different level.

George got up to question several items on the consent agenda, including one regarding landscape maintenance at the solar field. Mummolo asked him to ask all of his questions first, and then they would be answered. Scott then rattled off a list of questions, closing with a complaint that two items -- a resolution approving a temporary capital budget and one granting new dates for a noise variance waiver for Terco Construction to install a water connection -- had both been added at the last minute, leaving no time for research, particularly of the capital budget.

As the question about the capital budget was addressed, Scott again expressed frustration, saying the resolution should have been on the agenda sooner.

Under New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act, the rules regarding availability of an agenda for a public meeting are pretty loose. The New Jersey Press Association, under its Open Public Meeting Act information for reporters, says no agenda is required for a meeting “as long as the meeting was scheduled in the annual notice of meetings.”

However, if a meeting is a rescheduled or special meeting, then “an agenda must be made available to the extent that it is known,” the NJPA website says. Special and rescheduled meeting are required to be advertised a minimum of 48 hours in advance, according to state information on the law.

Most public bodies make some sort of agenda available prior to a meeting. Many of them, including the Brick Township Council and Board of Education, publish them online, allowing residents to look at the agenda without leaving their homes.

But not all municipal bodies and school boards publish them online. The Manchester Township and Central Regional school boards, for example, provide agenda copies at their meetings but rarely post them in advance of a meeting. The Toms River Township Council often posts its agenda the day of its meetings. Most bodies supply them without hassle if a request is made.

As Scott complained about the last-minute changes in the agenda, Mummolo cut him off, telling Scott he had overheard a comment Scott had made in the hallway before the meeting stating an intention to drag the meeting out with questions because of the addition that day of the capital budget. Mummolo said he would not allow Scott to do that.

The response from Mummolo, who has displayed a sense of humor and been very calm previously, startled some in the room.

Nan Coll, another council meeting regular, took her turn at the microphone and scolded Mummolo.

“Public comments are to inform you of our needs, wants and desires,” Coll said, adding that she was very upset by the way Mummolo spoke to Scott.

“You have a duty to inform us” about the actions township officials are taking, she said, adding, “We should not have to seek out information on our own.”

“What we are seeking for information shouldn’t be limited by a time element,” she said, renewing her call for the council to return to a format of separate caucus and business meetings. She has previously urged the council to return to that format -- which was abandoned in 2009, so that residents could more fully ask questions about actions the council planned to take before they are voted on.

Scott approached the microphone a final time during the public comment, but Mummolo wouldn’t let him speak, cutting him off and interrupting Scott as he sought to express his frustration about the late addition of the temporary capital budget to the agenda.

“We’re not going to get into an argument,” Mummolo said, noting the argument from the April 21 council meeting, and expressing his frustrations over Scott’s statements at that meeting, which Mummolo said were the result of Scott getting the agenda too soon.

“You got it way before I approved it,” Mummolo said of the April 21 agenda.

Mummolo also noted Scott’s visits to Business Administrator Joanne Bergin’s office, which Mummolo said provide Scott with ample time to get his questions answered.

“You were in here yesterday, you were in here today. You spend a lot of time with Ms Bergin,” Mummolo said.

As Scott tried to reply, Mummolo interrupted him again and told him to ”take a seat.”

“You’re not going to let me speak,” Scott asked, and as Mummolo told him again to take a seat, said, “You’re kidding me,” but left the microphone sat down.

The exchange cast a pall over the rest of the meeting, with only Councilman Jim Fozman, who addressed one of Scott’s earlier questions during the council comment period, even addressing Scott.

It’s not the first time Mummolo has cut short a resident’s comments. Mummolo had to repeatedly tell James Cancel, the Maple Leaf Park resident whose complaints about drugs and crime have been frequent, to stop naming names of people he believes are committing crimes. He never told Cancel, who has been repeatedly critical of the police department’s response in Maple Leaf Park, to sit down, however.

(Council President Paul Mummolo, with Susan Lydecker, who served as council president in 2014, at the Brick Township Council’s reorganization meeting in January. Credit: Karen Wall)