Middletown Township Committee Meeting 9/17/12

I know I'm 2 weeks late and a dollar short posting this video of the September 17th, 2012, Middletown Township Committee meeting (I will be posting this past Monday night's meeting shortly).

The meeting lasted only 45 minutes so if you watch the video you should be able to get through it rather quickly. The two major points taken away from the from the meeting and which should raise some eyebrows were:

1. Questions were raised, thoughts and comments were shared regarding the settlement between the Township and a police officer that filed a racial discrimination lawsuit.
2. It was also stated that the Township does not have enough employees to provide the services to the residents.

In regards to the racial discrimination lawsuit, from what I understand it cost the Township ~ $300K (~$70K of which will come directly from our tax base with the remaining amount coming from the Township's insurance carrier, also part of our taxes).



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's Discrimination; Law Suits Could Have Been Avoided If Human Rights Commission Were allowed To Do Its Job

To the Editor:

Middletown recently settled a racial harassment discrimination lawsuit by one of its own police officers for $300,000 dollars, of which the town must pay $70,000. The township attorney stated that the officials would be reviewing their discrimination policies and procedures.

There was an earlier sexual harassment settlement by a township employee.

A few years ago, while chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, I experienced disability discrimination by the township. As part of my settlement the township was supposed to review discrimination policies and train employees.

It is way past time for Middletown officials to take serious action to ensure a harassment-free environment for all employees. The logical action would be for the Middletown Human  Rights Commission to help the Township Committee review its discrimination policies and train employees.

But wait, the MHRC has been decimated, reduced to four of the required eleven members and is nearly defunct!  The remaining members have only met once since December.

If the MHRC were  allowed to do its job, these expensive lawsuits and cash settlements could be avoided.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Schwebel