I wasn't unable to attend this past Tuesday night's Middletown Township Committee meeting. I was busy with my son at his Boy Scout pack meeting, winning this year's Pinewood Derby, so I'm not able to give an eyewitness account of what went on when the meeting was finally opened up for public comments, but from all accounts it was rather raucous.
The courtroom was packed with soon to be ex-members of the Middletown Swim and Tennis Club, who were angry at being blindsided by the news that the swim club would not be operational this year.
Middletown Patch actually has a very good article posted online about the meeting which I recommend others to read, I'm told is a very fair representation of the meeting.
Below is audio from the meeting that contain the questions of two swim club members who addressed their concerns about the club's demise to the Township Committee (the audio runs for roughly 19 minutes). Interestingly the first person you hear addressing the Committee is Tracy Lewis, who just so happens to be on of the residents quoted in the Patch article, so it's good listening. The second questioner that is contained in the audio clip, no matter how hard I try, I can't decipher his name but that doesn't really matter, what matters was the answer to his questions, which you can listen to.
While you're listening however, keep a sharp ear out and listen for a big pet peeve of mine. About 17 minutes into the audio, Township Attorney Brian Nelson jumps in to answer the gentleman's questions about how surplus/debt the swim club accumulated /accrued between the time the Township Purchased the property in 1997 to 2011. Nelson speaks up and starts giving numbers from 2008 to present, instead of allowing the Township Administrator, Tony Mercantante, or someone from the Committee itself to answer! Brian Nelson is there to give legal advice tot he governing body, he is not and was not ever an elected official of Middletown.
That's something that he seems to forget, but I can see where he might think he is seeing how is a member in good standing of the Middletown GOP and its Chairman's righthand man.
11 comments:
where did you get the audio? Would like to hear the whole public comments portion of the meeting (even though I understand that it went for 2+ hours)
This sawed off egotistical individual needs to be put into his proper place and that's at the table in front of the dais.
HE is not an elected official and never was !
Second in command of the Middletown Republican Party does not qualify him for a place on the dais He should learn to keep his mouth shut. Think he would find that impossible. Should speak when his input is requested for a legal opinion.Anything else is SPEAKING OUT of TURN !
Typical lack of communication on the part of the TC to the public and too much communication (CYA)from the one who wasn't elected.
As the Mayor stated. The demise of the pool club was forseeable "three years ago when the other two TC members wanted to close it."
It shouldn't be subsidized on the back of the taxpayers.
The soon to be ex-members who appeared to be all to willing to do whatever they could on their part, should have been made aware of the situation then. They were blindsided. Perhaps they could have used the past three additional years that the club remained open to try to turn things around, by their conjoined efforts with offers of fundraisers and free labor and materials.
Perhaps membership would have increased. Even in this economy it was cheaper to join the pool club for an entire summer season than it was for a short week long family vacation.
Anon 10:15,
I am still listening to the audio that I have and will post all that I have available when finished.
Mike,
Listen real to close to how they're playing the blame game.
Mismanagement. As the elected officials they have the fidiciary responsibility to oversee all.
If they saw that it was going sour and they saw that it was being mismanaged, what were they doing about it for the past, how many years?
Why does Middletown insist on buying properties and try going into business? The Swim Club was doomed from the start. A private investor wanted to buy it, run the swim club and add a restaurant. The TC at the time would not let that happen, they bought it. Instead we lost out on collecting taxes on that property all these years. Art Center is a multi million dollar drain on the taxpayers. In Red Bank a private investor bought the Armory and has a successful ice rink operation in place and Red Bank is collecting the property tax. Some think our local or county government should build an ice rink, bad idea. Let private industry operate such ventures, our politicians have proven to be inept in running a business.
Anon 10:15 AM,
Everyone in the township could have the option of listening to township committee meetings if the townshp committee "streamed" (which is what takes place on the county level thanks to Democrats initiating this new policy)the audio live and then made it available on the township website.
Better yet, the township should be recording and broadcasting township committee meetings and making the meetings a regular part of local public programing. The committee will tell you that it is too expensive, but the expense is already covered by and agreement with Comcast and Verizon.
Anon 10:15 AM,
Everyone in the township could have the option of listening to township committee meetings if the townshp committee "streamed" (which is what takes place on the county level thanks to Democrats initiating this new policy)the audio live and then made it available on the township website.
Better yet, the township should be recording and broadcasting township committee meetings and making the meetings a regular part of local public programing. The committee will tell you that it is too expensive, but the expense is already covered by and agreement with Comcast and Verizon.
www.visitmonmouth.com
where's
www.visitmiddletown.com
?
I'm not sure how anyone can be surprised by the decision to close the place. Membership prices are SO expensive and quite honestly, the place is a dump compared to what you could be getting at one of the nice clubs in Sea Bright and other local areas. If it were actually affordable for us locals, maybe it would have had a chance.
Do your really going to get anyone good to run it for 6 months of the year unless you pay them well? This could have been something worse if the township didn't buy it. It may have seemed to be the right at the time given the information at the time. All programs in the town need to reevaluated every year. Thats the problem in Washington, the gravy train keeps rolling on and no one wants to tell anyone else NO MORE!!!
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