April 20, 2015 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

Here is the video of last week's April 20th meeting of the Middletown Township Committee there were many proclamations presented, including one which honored the Middletown High School South Girls Basketball team which won a State Title.

In addition two new police sergeants were sworn in and the Committee voted to refinance $3.2M in bond debt from 2007-08.

Also, residents from the Four Winds Drive neighborhood came to tell the township of the condition of the road, speeding and truck traffic.




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.

April 4, 2015 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

At last week's April 4th Township Committee workshop meeting an ordinance was introduced to refinance $3.2M of the township debt, which now totals just above $70M. Among the resolutions approved was one to pay out over $75K to a retiring police officer and another that would approve the purchase of 3 DVRs for police surveillance.

Police Chief Weber attended this meeting to explain some of the reorganization taking place within the police department. He said that changes are in the process of being made that will produce more efficiencies on each shift.

Committeeman Fiore requested that commuter parking be monitored around bus stops along Rt. 36 because the commuter parking lots are not being utilized and suggested that street parking restrictions be implemented to direct commuters to park in the lots.

However, the real standout of the meeting happened to be Deputy Mayor Steve Massell who ran the meeting in the absence of Mayor Stephanie Murray. It seems that after several years as a member of the township committee, Massell still doesn't know how to manage a meeting. He bumbled his way through the meeting and seemed disconnected from the proceedings at times. Obviously this is not how our township committee people are supposed to conduct meetings.



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.

Letter: Save Our Swim Club

Dear Middletown Mike,

I am writing to you to regarding the Middletown Swim Club. As we all know the township has stated that they do not want to operate the swim club this year. We ( club members) went to the town meeting on Jan 17th to let the township know we were are not happy with their decision.

During the meeting many numbers were thrown about regarding ADA regulations that need to be put into place and also capital improvements that needed to be made. These numbers ranged up to a million dollars with no specifics to clarify to the members . We have done some investigating with the town and discovered a few things that we think people should know.
The swim club has never been a burden to taxpayers . The swim club is set up as a utility and as such must be self sustaining. Only membership money has been used to run the club.

It has been rumored that they may only open 1 pool this year. The cost to open one pool and 4 pools is the same. Also – if the pumps are not run in the other pools they will become damaged and that will cost money to repair.

Most importantly:

The taxpayers of Middletown will have to take on the burden of the bonds that are owed on the swim club. This amount is $225,000.00 if the club is not opened this year. The membership dues are what cover this cost. These bonds will continue for the next 10 years for a total cost to the taxpayer of $1,300,000.

A member committee has been established and will be presenting its plan to the Township for the continued operation of the swim club very soon.

We who belong love our club. We would like all to join and see what we see. No one should have to go to another town and use their pool when we have a perfectly good one in our own town. Support Middletown, keep the money here. Please join the fight to save the pool club.

Regards,

Save Our Swim Club Committee

Kerri Brennan
Middletown

It's Your Town - Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 14- 7/13/11: 2011 Budget Adoption

There was a special Middletown Township Committee meeting on Wednesday, July 13,2011 to adopted the FY2011 Township budget. The Committee held a Public Hearing to amend the municipal budget before adoption, after which the Committee voted to adopt a budget for the 2011 calendar year. You can read all about it in the new edition of It's Your Town newsletter

This was another quick meeting with no comments from the Committee members except for Mayor Fiore, who said he was very proud of the budget produced this year.

To say that there was a handful of residents in attendance is an over statement, if you took out the reporters that were there only less than 10 people showed up. Do you think the 5pm starting time had anything to do with this? Something as important as a budget adoption could have waited until this evening when Middletown holds it regular monthly meeting in the court room.

Included in this budget is a property tax increase of about 3% over the 2010 increase of 13.85%.

It was stated that quarterly tax bills that reflect the new tax rate should be mailed out in about a week or so after the budget adoption, so you can expect your bills anytime now.

You can read this edition of It's Your Town newsletter and see a copy of the 2011 adopted Middletown Budget....Here

Once you read the news letter and take a look at the budget, you'll then be prepared to ask a few questions tonight if you are planning to attend the regular Township meeting at 8pm tonight at Town Hall.

Two things in the budget that quickly stood out to me were interest payments on bond debt, which has increased by nearly $400K over last year and the lack of an adequate surplus of funds built into this years budget. Surplus funds in this years budget have been diminished to $600K , which is extremely low, In years past that number has been as high as $4M. Last years surplus was over $1M and by the end of the FY 2010 it had been exhausted.

By the end of the year will the Township need to borrow money from the 2012 budget to make up for a shortfall as they had had to do at the end of 2009?

The Last "It's Your Town" Newsletter For 2010 Is Available For Reading

The last issue of the year of It's Your Town newsletter has be published and is ready for downloading. The issue of the newsletter covers the last Middletown Township Committee meeting that took place on Monday, December 20th.

It was a very quick meeting, lasting only 1 hour. But even though it was short, a few major things took place.

Committeeman Sean Byrnes was recognized by the Township for his 3 years of service on the Committee and a resolution that Byrnes introduced to televise the meetings was tabled for further discussion by Deputy Mayor Tony Fiore and the Committee (which means that it will never be discussed again unless residents continue to push for it).

The Committee also agreed to retire a dozen or so different bond ordinances that still have funds associated with them. The funds will be used to pay off the bond debt that these and other bonds have generated over the years.

I hope that everyone that has downloaded or have received copies of the newsletter via email over this past year, have enjoyed reading it, an awful lot of work goes into producing it. The newsletter is the closest representation of what actually happens at Township Committee meetings that residents have available to them without actually being there.

The author, Don Watson, does an outstanding job at maintaining a non-partisan and unbiased approach to writing the newsletters and should be commended for his efforts at informing the public on what is happening down at Town Hall.

It is, after all, your town!

If you would like to be put on to an email list to have the It's Your Town newsletter sent to your inbox send a request to: itsourtown@yahoo.com

You can download the newsletter >>> Here