December 17, 2018 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

With all of the holiday hustle and bustle, I never got around to posting the Middletown Township Committee meeting that was held on December 17th. This meeting was rather significant because at this meeting the Township Committee voted to move forward with the proposed new municipal complex that will cost residents over a $100M dollars when all is said and done. The public hearing on the project begins at approx. 29:30 to 1:15:15 of the video.

Another public hearing was held right afterwards concerning a redevelopment plan off of Half-Mile road. The Township committee voted to adopt the resolution even though the Township Planning Board voted against it's approval. That hearing begins approx 1:16:00 and finished at 1:56:02 of the video.

Comments from the Public began at the 2:12:20 portion of the meeting and continued until the end of the meeting some 30 minutes later.




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.

December 6, 2018 " Special Meeting" Of The Middletown Township Committee: New Town Hall Complex To Cost Upwards Of $100 Million

I was at last night's special meeting of the Middletown Township Committee to hear the introduction of the new Town Hall Municipal Complex. I was interested in hearing how much it will cost us taxpayers.

The township entered into a public /private P3 agreement with a developer called Brandywine Acquisitions & Development . Brandywine will front upwards of $56.7M to build a new 72'000 sqft Municipal Complex. Brandywine will then recoup its investment by leasing the new complex back to the Township for $3.6M a year for 30 years. At the end of the 30 year lease Middletown can buy back the property from Brandywine for $1.

Sounds like a great deal until you try to work out the fuzzy math.

The Township can build a new municipal complex on its own for ~$60M (or less) but appears to prefer to pay Brandywine $108M in lease payments over the life of the 30 year lease just so the town doesn't have to payout any upfront costs. When the documents become available they must be looked at closely to see the structure of the payments. In the meantime, Middletown plans on signing the development deal within the next 10 days.

The Asbury Park Press has an article online this morning concerning the project. It pretty much confirms what I posted last night to my Facebook page.

Why Won't Middletown Tell Us? Why The Mystery Over The Cost Of The New Municipal Complex?

Nearly 5 weeks ago, I posted here that the cost of Middletown's new municipal complex under development had ballooned from the original estimate of $20 million dollars to $54 million.  The new municipal complex was supposed to be discussed at the September 17th meeting of the Township Committee but was pulled from the agenda due to budget concerns from what I was told.  At the time however, township officials scoffed at the figure but wouldn't answer as to whether or not what I wrote was true. Since that time, the Asbury Park Press has written two articles on the subject, the most recent of which appears in print this morning, "Middletown complex cost is a mystery", and it appears that township officials still aren't willing to discuss the cost of the new complex. Why the mystery?

The Asbury Park Press submitted several OPRA requests to the township looking for information on the project only to have those requests denied.  In the Township's response for information, the Asbury Park Press was told that the plans for the complex will be discussed at the Nov. 19th Township Committee meeting (which happens to be conveniently after this Tuesday's election).

Here's my take on the situation, the story in the Asbury Park Press about the how much the new municipal complex will cost is noteworthy on a number of fronts:

First, by denying of the OPRA request, Middletown won’t release to the Asbury Park Press documents that show how taxpayer money will be spent but under an anonymous OPRA request, the township released privacy protected emails to a requester, who appears to have been an appointed committeeman seeking 1st time election to the Township Committee, who and used those emails to send an inflammatory and deceptive, factually inaccurate email using the list which was obtained from the township, Tony Perry.

Second, the Mayor won’t release any information about the  project until after the election. Withholding of information like this is typical for this Township Committee.

And finally, because information about the revised costs of the new municipal complex won’t be released until after the November 6th election, I am convinced that the new price tag of $54 million, which is more than $30 million over what was originally told to us, is correct.

 So much for “taxpayers first.”.  How can anyone trust anything this group of township officials say or do?  I sure can't and neither can a lot of others.

Heard It In The Hallways: New Middletown Municipal Complex To Cost $54M

Overlooked by myself and others at the September 17th meeting of the Middletown Township Committee, was an item with mentioning. On the Meeting Agenda for the night,  a public hearing was scheduled to take place on the proposed Township Ordinance  "2018-3236 Ordinance Adopting Amended Municipal Complex Redevelopment Plan for Block 815 Lots 1.01, 6 and 7 on the Official Tax Map of the Township of Middletown".

Laid out within the electronic copy of the agenda for the night, was the entire proposal for the planned municipal complex (which you can see by falling the link above). However, that public hearing never took place. It was postponed for a later date, which I've since learned to be the night of Nov. 19th, which is the first meeting of the Township Committee after the Nov. 6th election and 3 days before Thanksgiving. Historically, that meeting is sparsely attended and happens to be a good night to drop a bombshell that few will hear.

So why was this proposed public hearing abruptly rescheduled at the last minute you ask? Well, according to a very, very, reliable person who would have knowledge of the details, after telling residents for months that the cost of a new municipal complex, which Township authorities had estimated  to cost $20M, has ballooned upwards and potentially over $54M!

That's right, $54M. That's nearly triple the original cost estimate for the complex and Township authorities couldn't stomach presenting that information at the meeting knowing that there were going to be so many people there asking questions about the potential of a huge sports complex being built at Stevenson Park.

$54 million dollars is big chunk of change, what could possibly cost that much money to build? And why, if you read the redevelopment plan, is the Township constructing two buildings to used as some sort of retail establishments? Isn't there going to be enough empty store fronts once the proposed Village 35 retail complex is built?

One other thing that should be kept in mind and it is said quite often about financial dealing like this is, "Follow the money" and "Who will benefit" the most from this.  Well, I can tell you who. It's the Bonding agency and it's attorneys! Few people know this but the bonding attorney for the Township is none other the Middletown Republican Municipal Chairman, Peter Carton. His law firm has handle all the bonding projects that Middletown has needed financing for, for two decades. Peter Carton and his firm have gotten fat feeding from the trough of Middletown taxpayers.

As usual, the Township Committee doesn't want you to know about this stuff and are happy to bury this information until after the election, so as not to upset potential voters.

  

February 21, 2017 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

On the same night as the most recent Middletown Board of Education meeting there was a meeting of the Middletown Township Committee. Below are the highlights from the February 21st meeting.

• The Township accepted a $500 donation from the Veterans Affairs Committee to restore the Doughboy statue in Belford.
• Patrolman Nicholas Manochio and Corporal Ryan Riffert were presented with Stork Awards for delivering a child of a woman on her way to the hospital.
• Kylie Reid and Shannon McCully were recognized for donating Over $5,500 to purchase bullet proof vests for police K-9s.
• The Mayor received the Chapel of Four Chaplains Legion Award.
• The Arts Center and SPUR received the Spinnaker Award.
• The DPW Director provided a presentation on making $1.7M in improvements while utilizing a Green Acres grant that will provide 25% of the cost.
• And during public comments there was some public discussion regarding the proposed new municipal center.

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.

MIDDLETOWN PLANS A NEW $20 MILLION TOWN HALL

The Two River Times had an article last week announcing the construction of a new Middletown Town Hall complex. The complex has been mentioned a number of times over the past couple of years but the township wasn't ready, willing or able to say much about it publicly.

The devil as they say, is in the details. When reading the article watch for Gerry Scharfenberger's comments, he loves to over exaggerate and use expressions like Wonderful and Fabulous, much like Trump, to make things seem much better than what they are.

Some of us who have regularly attended Township Committee meetings or have watched the video from the meetings,  knew this new complex was being developed and coming, but make no mistake, while this new complex may realistically be needed, it will cost taxpayers a minimum of $10-$15 million even after any outside funding or the selling of township assets realized.

MIDDLETOWN – Penciled into the township’s to-do list in 2017: a complete overhaul to their 1 Kings Highway facility.

On Feb. 10, Middletown Township posted a request for proposal (RFP) on its website, looking for architectural firms to place bids on a possible $20 million complex which would become an overall administrative hub at the township’s main campus.

“We have all these township offices spread all over, and it’s very difficult and inefficient for our residents,” Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger said by phone on Saturday afternoon. “It would be nice to go to one building and take care of a few things in one area.”

Preliminary plans for the project came in on Sept. 12 and Nov. 16 of last year from Arcari + Iovino, PC – an architectural firm that was retained as the Architect of Record by Middletown at the reorganization meeting on Jan. 1, 2017.

The RFP says this project would be an approximately 23,000-square-foot, multistory building in a new spot at 1 Kings Highway that would host all township administrative offices, along with the police department.

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Heard It In The Hallways... New Municipal Building To Be Built On Penelope Lane

Back in April I posted that Middletown will be building a new municipal complex. At the time, the powers that be weren't ready to say where the complex would be built.  That's changed.

I've now heard that the new Town Hall and Police Station will be built north of their current location, on Penelope Lane between Kings Highway and Route 35.

The next things that residents need to know is when will work begin on the new building/s and what will they cost?

New Municipal Complex Coming To Middletown

Rumors have been circulating for many months concerning a new Middletown municipal complex to  replace the township's current place of residence. Township officials in the past had been very coy and guarded when answering questions about the possibility of a new complex, they would neither confirm nor deny such plans.  That has now changed.

During public comments of the April 20th Township Committee meeting, a resident asked about the rewiring of Town Hall after a major power outage the previous week fried much of the wiring in the building. When asked if the building was going to be needing a total rewiring, Township Administrator Tony Mercantante stated that it was unlike. When asked about  plans for redesigning or   refurbishing of the building, Mercantante mentioned that there weren't plans for a refurbishment  but plans for a new building.

The conversation starts at the 1:26:11 mark of the video and continues 1:27:40

At the April 30th special budget adoption meeting, a resident asked if there were funds dedicated in this budget to the construction of the new municipal building. She was told by the CFO that there wasn't, but money was included as part of the capital improvements in the previous year's 2014 budget. That conversation can be viewed starting at the 11:10 - 11:45 marks of the video.

So, at this point it now seems pretty clear that Middletown will be spending a few $ million on a new Town Hall, which I must say is needed. I'm just curious where it's going to be built and at what cost.

Are they planing on knocking down the current Town Hall and rebuilding in its current footprint or relocating and starting fresh? Originally it was going to be part of the Town Center project but that is unlikely considering the bad blood that litigation creates.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Is A New Municipal Complex For Middletown In The Works?

It seems that after years of urging by local Democrats, a new municipal complex will finally be coming to Middletown. An architect has already started on the plans I've come to find out.

I was passed the following note tipped me off on the proposed new complex from an insider down at Town Hall who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reason. What do you think?

"It’s about time! Rumor has it that after several years of urging by local Democrats, Middletown will finally be getting a new police station within a new municipal complex. An architect has already started on the plans. There have been numerous issues raised by Democrats over the years about our existing police station. Issues regarding safety, flooding, mold, bugs, overloaded electrical circuits, overcrowding, and accommodations for female officers and the handicapped, to name just a few problems.

These are not the only reasons the new complex is long overdue. We are enjoying historically low interest rates and with the economy in its current state, we can expect low bid prices for construction. There are myriad funding opportunities available, as well. We hope the township looks into a Community Development Block Grant, the Municipalities Infrastructure Program, and numerous Federal grants provided by the EPA, DOT, Homeland Security and Smart Growth Program, to name just a few. Also a Section 319 Grant Award from the EPA would help mitigate the toxic ground contamination resulting from leaking underground storage tanks, which have been removed.

Besides outside funding, the township could sell its excess property around town to raise money. They could waive all permit and inspection fees on the new complex for added savings. The township could also sponsor a “Buy a Brick” program to entice residents to make private donations with the promise of their name on a prominently placed brick.

Don’t let the Republicans in control fool you by saying that this is their great idea. The police station has been in need of major repair or replacement for decades. Years they have been in control. Years they have ignored the safety, flooding, mold, etc. Let’s see when they reveal the fact that an architect has plans ready. Just before the election is a good guess.

The most important thing here is that the police will finally be getting the much needed and much deserved home base to protect Middletown’s residents. It’s about"