Charter Review: Round 2 Takes on Mayors and Money

The South Orange Charter Review, a group of seven citizens and trustees who are charged with evaluating how the charter that governs South Orange is working, presented its second public forum on Thursday.  The committee, led by former Village President Douglas Newman presented an array of amendments to the current town charter.

Among the changes proposed were:

1. Change “Township of South Orange Village” to “South Orange Village”
2. Change “Village President” to “Mayor;” and, change “Board of Trustees” to “Village Council”
3. Change biennial elections from May to November
4. Provide Village President and Trustees with annual stipends without any other benefits
5. Change adoption of resolutions to require affirmative vote of majority of Trustees present, not merely Trustees who voted
6. Allow Village President to have the right to vote on adoption of the budget

The full list of changes and the presentation can be found here.

During the public forum, numerous South Orange residents presented questions and comments about the recommendations.  Some of the comments included:

Elaine Harris asked the committee to find a way to distinguish between village council and the council of the village should the changes go through.  She also opposed the stipends for elected officials.

Leslie Pogany asked if the charter changes could be put up in a ballot initiative for voters to decide.  She also asked about the threshold that would require stipends to be required for pension.

David Belasco questioned if the elections moved to November, would they coincide with state or federal elections.

Barbara Belasco asked how the town would pay for the stipends.

Lindy Wilson asked which laws would change dramatically if New Jersey state law trumped charter laws.  She also expressed concern over stipends and the changing of the date of the election.

Alyssa Aronson asked whether stipends would produce better candidates and how much of the stipends would be paid for with taxpayer funds.

James Johnston suggested that the board of trustees have a representative from each district in town.

South Orange residents can email questions, comments or suggestions to charter@southorange.org.

Among the residents that attended the forum was South Orange’s Village President Alex Torpey. After the presentation, he applauded the work done by the committee.

“I want to make sure to recognize the work of our former Village President and all of the volunteers on the committee,” said Torpey.  “The presentation tonight was extremely thorough and personally there are various issues I haven't even made up my mind about so I'm looking forward to being able to discuss these with the Board and the public as we get into the home stretch of this process.”