Edison Councilman's Walkout Draws Mayor's Criticism Amid Budget Standoff

EDISON, NJ — Edison Township's Municipal Budget Public Hearing and Adoption vote ended abruptly Monday night after the council lost its quorum, preventing members from voting on the budget or taking public comment on revisions and amendments.

Of the township's seven elected council members, three did not attend Monday's meeting. With four members present, the council initially had enough for a quorum to hold the public hearing and vote on the budget. Partway through, Councilman Richard Brescher left the meeting, leaving only three members present and ending the session without a vote.

In a statement released Monday night, Mayor Sam Joshi called Brescher's decision to leave "reckless and childish" and said it denied residents and other council members the right to discuss or amend the budget. Joshi said the township's next scheduled council meeting falls after the expiration of Edison's temporary budget appropriations, which he said could lead to employee furloughs and disrupted municipal services.

"Councilman Richard Brescher's reckless and childish actions denied the residents and other Councilmembers the right to discuss or amend the budget. Moreover, the next scheduled Council meeting is past the expiration of our temporary appropriations, which can cause employee furloughs and a disruption of municipal services," Joshi said in the statement.

“Therefore as mayor, i will use my statutory authority and force the council to hold a meeting prior to the end of this month, to prevent furloughs and avoid disruption of municipal services.”

In an interview with Patch on Tuesday, Brescher said he had asked the administration for documentation showing where in the budget it had reduced spending on take-home vehicles, but said the information was never provided.

"I asked to see where they cut that from the budget," Brescher said. "They refused to give me the documentation or show me the line items where the EZ Pass is and where the fuel is."

Brescher said the prior administration did not allow employees to take township vehicles home, but said the current administration allows approximately 100 vehicles to go home each night, including to employees who live outside Edison in towns such as those in Hunterdon County and Toms River. He said the administration told him it had ended the take-home vehicle practice because of this year's proposed tax increase, which he said was roughly 4.5 percent, but he said officials would not confirm that in writing.

Brescher also said the administration sent council a revised version of the budget at 5 p.m. Monday, hours before the meeting, and said the mayor's office did not submit the original budget to council by the statutory deadline in February or March.

According to Brescher, Edison previously had an ordinance limiting take-home vehicle privileges to the police chief, fire chief, business administrator and mayor. He said the township attorney determined that ordinance had been improperly adopted without enough votes, despite remaining on the township's books, and said he wants the council to formally reestablish the restriction.

"This mayor allowed everybody to take it, like 100 people take home cars, and all these people don't live in Edison," Brescher said. "They're traveling 100 miles back and forth that we're paying for."

Brescher disputed the mayor's warning that a delayed budget vote could trigger furloughs, saying past Edison administrations adopted budgets as late as August or September without furloughing employees.

"The mayor knows that because he was on council," Brescher said, adding that Joshi served on the council in prior years when budgets were adopted later in the year without furloughs. "That's theatrics, just trying to guilt people to vote for his budget when he's withholding information from us."

Responding to the mayor's description of his actions as "reckless and childish," Brescher, who said he is in his 60s, said the administration's refusal to provide requested records was the real issue.

"Childish is not giving council people whose only job is to review the budget and make laws," Brescher said. He compared the situation to a prior instance in which the township provided a heavily redacted report on the local animal shelter. "It looked like it was a UFO file," he said.

Asked about the mayor's plan to use statutory authority to compel a council meeting before the end of the month, Brescher said he did not believe the mayor has the power to force council members to attend, but said he is willing to meet as soon as the administration provides the requested vehicle-related spending records and the council agrees to reinstate the take-home vehicle restriction.

"I'm willing to go there right now or today for them to give me the records that I'm seeking," Brescher said.

A new date for the council meeting is expected to be announced soon.

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