Gillespie Appointed Moorestown Mayor; Donnelly Is Deputy Mayor

MOORESTOWN, NJ — In her first full year as a member of Moorestown Council, Nicole Gillespie served as deputy mayor. To mark the beginning of her second year in office, she took the reins as mayor.

Gillespie took the oath of office to serve as Moorestown Mayor during Monday night’s reorganization meeting at town hall. Brian Donnelly was sworn in as deputy mayor. Rep. Andy Kim (D-3) administered both oaths.

“Change is inevitable, but progress is optional,” Gillespie said. “We’re going to anticipate and manage change, and we’re going to make even more progress in 2020.”

Gillespie said she was humbled to be appointed mayor by the other members of council as the women’s suffrage movement turns 100 years old, particularly since she’s serving on a council that has three women on it.

With Gillespie’s swearing-in, all three of those women have served as mayor. Gillespie takes over after Lisa Petriello served in the seat for a year. Victoria Napolitano was the youngest person to serve as a mayor in state history when she was sworn in as Moorestown Mayor in 2015.

It was Napolitano who first pointed out that 2020 marks the 100-year anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement, which concluded with the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote on Aug. 18, 1920.

Moorestown resident Alice Paul was a vocal leader of that movement. She died in 1977. Her 140th birthday anniversary is Saturday, Jan. 11.

Napolitano was also one of two council members to vote against Gillespie’s appointment to the mayor’s seat. Monday night’s vote was 3-2, with Democrats Gillespie, Petriello and Donnelly voting in favor, and Republicans Napolitano and Councilman Mike Locatell voting against. Donnelly’s appointment as deputy mayor was approved with a 5-0 vote.

“Thank you for your votes, even those who dissented,” Gillespie said. “I’m committed to work with all of you.”

“I’m hopeful that we can work together,” Locatell said. “Last year started tough and very political, but we learned to work together. But then when we met about this year’s appointments, politics bubbled back up to the top.”

Napolitano said she voted for Donnelly’s appointment because he has shown his willingness to work as a team.

“It gave me no pleasure to vote no,” Napolitano said of her vote on Gillespie’s appointment. “When we first spoke about this, I fully intended to support you. Some things we spoke about and were in agreement on have changed. I feel like partisan bickering to you (Gillespie) means dissent, but I will speak up when I disagree with you on something just as I do with my own party.”

There were several disagreements when council appointed their professionals and volunteers for boards and commissions for the year. There were 3-2 votes down party lines when it came to appointments for the Zoning Board, Planning Board, Recreation Advisory Committee, the appointment of Bach Associates as the township’s alternate landscape architect/park design consultant, the appointment of Acacia Financial Group for financial advisory services, and appointments for Pennoni as the township engineer and alternate utilities and storm water engineer.

While the Democrats held the view that new faces should be brought in to inject some new ideas into the boards and committees, the Republicans were concerned that in some cases, committee chairs that wanted to continue to serve were being removed.

They also argued that continuity was a crucial piece on the planning and zoning boards, where members serve as alternate members before joining the board in full, and where there are term limits for the members.

The Democrats pointed out that while some new members were being added, there is continuity because the majority of the members on the committees were remaining in place.

Factors that were taken into account when making these decisions included qualifications and attendance record. Locatell said his attendance for the committee he is a liaison to was wrong for 2019, and questioned the accuracy of those numbers. As a result, council postponed a consent agenda resolution setting the attendance policy for boards and committees so it can be discussed at an upcoming workshop.

The appointments of McManimon, Scotland and Baumann LLC as bond counsel and as utilities and storm water counsel were also postponed after questions emerged concerning their possible political contributions.