Middletown Reorganization Day Set For Tomorrow at 11am

The annual lovelfest otherwise known as Middletown Reorganization Day, will take place tomorrow at Town Hall starting at 11am.  If I can stand it, I might attend...

From Middletown Alerts:

The Township Committee will hold Middletown’s annual Organization Day meeting at 11:00am on Sunday, January 4, 2015 at Town Hall, 1 Kings Highway. On the agenda will be the swearing in of the 2015 Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Under the township’s form of government, the Township Committee designates two members to serve as mayor and deputy mayor for a one-year term. Committeeman Anthony P. Fiore will accept the oath of office to serve his third consecutive term. Committeewoman Stephanie C. Murray will accept the oath of office to serve her second consecutive. The term for each Committee member is three years.

Scores of volunteers traditionally attend to accept oaths of office to serve on more than a dozen township boards, committees and commissions. Each group focuses on different aspects of the community and works to enhance Middletown’s quality of life. Residents are appointed to these positions by the Township Committee. For more information call the Township Clerk at (732) 615-2014.

Middletown’s Disappearing Boards

By Linda Baum

What do the Finance Committee, Board of Ethics, and Human Rights Commission all have in common? They are all important, and they are disappearing.

The Middletown Human Rights Commission (MHRC) is the oldest human rights commission in the state of New Jersey. Its primary mission, under state law, is to foster good will and cooperation among our diverse community groups. An 11-member board which currently has only 4 members, the MHRC is dying by attrition as terms expire and no appointments are made by the Township Committee.

Provisions for a Board of Ethics and a Finance Committee (once called “Finance and Accounting”) were originally included in the administrative code that set forth the day-to-day operations for the 1971 Middletown Special Charter, which established our form of government. However, these provisions no longer exist, eliminated in one of several updates to the code, or modernizations as they are sometimes called.

Fortunately, the administrative code can be easily amended. Appointments can be made and all of these boards can be formed or re-constituted. Our Township Committee simply needs to choose to do so. As a member of that Committee, I would insist on it.