July 17th & August 21st Middletown Township Committee Meetings

During my malaise, I missed posting the July meeting of the Middletown Township Committee. At the time, the hot button item of the day was the proposed cut in state funding to the Middletown Board of Education. Since this meeting, most of the proposed funding cuts statewide have been restored.

The one thing that stood out to me about this meeting was that before the meeting got down to business, members of the Board of Education addressed the Township Committee to express their concerns about the proposed funding cuts.  If you've been a long time watcher to the Township Committee like myself, you would have been disturbed by the utter hypocrisy of mayor Scharfenberger and his fellow Republican committee members, who in the past has disparaged the Board for not doing their bidding and using the Board of Education budget to create animosity amounts residents. The committee always points out how the Board of Education's budget is 2/3's of the local tax levy and if residents have issues with the Committee raising taxes, they should be pointing fingers towards the Board of Ed instead.

Anyway, here are the highlights from the July 17th meeting:

• Some members of the Board of Education came in to thank the Committee for their support regarding school funding.
• An ordinance was adopted that vacated a paper street behind the former Hess gas station on Rt. 35.
• Another ordinance was adopted to amend performance residential development residential requirements.

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.

I only viewed about 15 minutes of the video of the August 21st meeting at this time, I plan on getting back to it in the next couple of days and comment if appropriate. Below however are a few highlights to watch and listen for while viewing thew video.

• Three new police officers were sworn in and two other officers were promoted.
• Proclamations were presented for Middletown being one of the safest places to raise a child and safest in the nation over all. September was declared Ovarian Cancer Awareness month. A proclamation was presented celebrating July 18 as Brookdale Community College Day, celebrating 50 years.
• A certificate of appreciation was presented to the Poricy Park Conservancy Board of Trustees.
• Ordinances were adopted declaring the Town Hall property as a redevelopment zone, restricting parking on Crawford Rd., amending fees for artificial turf fields and day care programs, another to approve capital funding to construct a pavillion at Poricy Park.
• Ordinances were introduced to compensate employees who opt out of health benefits, prohibiting motorized vehicles in parks, and establishing a curfew for Halloween.

You can download a copy of the Meeting Agenda... HERE and just as stated above, the agenda contains the discussion items and the proposed resolutions and ordinances that were voted on or presented during the meeting along with the monthly bill list.