Friday, December 26, 2014

December 15, 2014 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

At the Dec.15th meeting of the Middletown Township Committee, Life Saving Awards were presented to firemen who rescued a man from a burning building in Leonardo. Proclamations were presented for Outstanding Community Service and commending the outgoing Planner. An award was represented for SCAN Leaders of Distinction.

A public hearings were held for Comcast Cable to renew the contract that had expired in August, amending the salary ordinance for non-union employees and to increase pet licenses.

Salary contracts were awarded to the Police Chief, Administrator and Recycling Consultant. Balances that were appropriated for 2014 and unused were carried into the 2015 budget, mostly to pay for insurance benefits.

Public Comments start at the 49:50 time stamp of the video.



As always, you can download a copy of the Meeting Agenda that contains the discussion items and the proposed resolutions and ordinances that were voted on or presented during the meeting. A box around an item is a link, bringing you further into the document to that resolution or ordinance. At the end of the resolution there will be a link bringing you back to the agenda. Attached to this agenda is also the monthly bill list, so that everyone can see how the Township is spending our tax dollars.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you compare the salary (ordinance 13-3100) of the previous Police Chief, Bob Oches, to the salary (resolution 14-310) of the recently appointed Police Chief, Craig Weber, you will see an increase of $20k. Resolution 14-310 says this salary is "below the salaries of many Chiefs of Police of comparably sized municipalities". The resolution also refers to dollar increases annually over the course of the contract. I'm sure many would like to know what other towns pay their chief more. I can't locate one.

Anonymous said...

http://php.app.com/NJpublicemployees13/results.php?pageNum_Recordset1=0&totalRows_Recordset1=39019&lastn=&firstn=&location=%25&countyname=%25&fundname=Police+and+Firemens+Retirement+System&tfm_order=DESC&tfm_orderby=salaryall2

No charge for the 3 min worth of research!

Anonymous said...

I found this source of public employee salary data:

http://php.app.com/NJpublicemployees13/results.php?pageNum_Recordset1=0&totalRows_Recordset1=39019&lastn=&firstn=&location=%25&countyname=%25&fundname=Police+and+Firemens+Retirement+System&tfm_order=DESC&tfm_orderby=locsal

However, I don't know how to limit it to Police Chiefs only. Given that several Police Officers have salaries in the $200k range, new Chief's salary does not look out of line with others in the state.

Whether these are reasonable, is, of course, another discussion....

Leonardo Reader

Anonymous said...

Changing comments now are we???

So much for freedom of speech. HAHA

MiddletownMike said...

What ???

For the record there is no freedom of speech on this blog, only the comments and expressions that I allow to be posted. I do not need to edit comments (which I couldn't if I wanted to), I'd just rejection altogether and not post.

Linda Baum said...

BTW, an additional resolution - Res. 14-320 - was adopted at this meeting but did not appear on the agenda and was not posted on the township website – even now there is no mention of it online. There was no discussion about it at the meeting and the Clerk read off the resolution numbers so fast that the addition was hard to catch. That is not appropriate, in my opinion. Attention should have been drawn to the last minute addition, and the committee or administrator should have said a few words about the resolution given there was no advance notice of it. The process here needs improvement regardless of what was “snuck in” last minute.

FYI, Res. 14-320 has to do with the appointment of a registrar and deputy registrar of statistics. Perhaps had the public been informed earlier about the resolution, someone could have asked at the hearing on the salary ordinance (that hearing was held at this meeting) if these positions have a salary associated with them, for example. The answer doesn’t concern me so much as how the lack of timely disclosure about the resolution affects the public’s ability to participate.

Linda Baum said...

I’m sorry I missed the hearing on the Comcast application. It was right at the start of the meeting ahead of all the presentations. I would have had a lot of questions for Comcast Director of Local Gov’t Affairs & NJ Assemblyman Rob Clifton, who was present at the 12/15/2014 meeting and said that Middletown received a $200,000 grant from Comcast in the year 2000! The grant is part of Comcast’s agreement with the township as spelled out in a 1999 ordinance and was intended for the purchase of “studio equipment for locally originated programming.” I would have asked Mr. Clifton how he knew the grant was made, what document did he see or who told him? Clifton, has been with Comcast since 2001, so if the grant was made, it was a bit before his time. I checked the township budgets for years 1999-2001, and there is no mention of the grant. It should have been a separate line item. The Township Committee members have expressed no knowledge of the grant, but don’t appear to have checked into it at all even though the issue has been brought up many times in the last few years. Considering the amount, you’d think they at least would have made a phone call to Clifton, a former county freeholder and colleague of theirs. If the money was received, why aren’t Middletown officials curious what happened to it because it certainly wasn’t used as intended. And if the money wasn’t received, well then it’s $200,000 available for the asking now.

Anonymous said...

Mike,

You used the link I had in my comment and completely edited what I wrote. I know there is no freedom of speech on a personal blog site- DUH!
I just find it odd that the EXACT link that I had used in my comment made it into someone else's comment somehow.
Must be a coincidence...go figure!

MiddletownMike said...

Anon 9:53

I have no idea what you're talking about or which post you're referring to.

The Blogger platform does not allow blog moderators, such as myself, to edit comments that are submitted. Comments can either be approved or rejected, nothing else.

Linda Baum said...


This is interesting.

I submitted an OPRA request for “records confirming Middletown Township’s receipt of the $200,000 grant from COMCAST or a copy of records which confirm receipt of each part of those grant monies if received in smaller installments.”

The township’s response: “Please be advised that there is no record responsive to this request per the Finance and Technology departments.”

Anonymous said...

I think Anon 12:00AM might be referring to my post. I found the same link, independently, with a few minutes of googling.

Happy New Year, Mike!

Leonardo Reader

Anonymous said...

Yes, That is what I was referring to. I just found it odd that I submitted the comment when yours was not posted and then all of the sudden yours showed up and mine didn't. That's all. I was confused and pissed cause I thought someone edited my comments!

Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:57, I think Mike moderates the comments (approve and publish or disapprove and doesn't publish) in batches when he has time. So yours hadn't yet appeared when I posted mine, then they were both published at the same time, even though written 9 hours apart. The mysteries of the interwebz!

Leonardo Reader