On Monday night we had a meeting. Here are the highlights.
Monday was the last meeting for our Township Manager, Joe D'Arco. He was with us for 3 years, and is now retiring from an incredible 57 years in public government. He was one of the longest serving local township managers in the country!
We hired Joe three years ago based on his extensive experience in running local governments. In our form of government (called Council-Manager), the town manager is basically the CEO, and the Council is like a Board of Directors. The Council needs to approve changes to laws and spending, and sign off on certain things, but we are not "running" the town. All of the day to day operations falls on the Township Manager. Therefore, in my opinion, the Council's most important job is to hire, and then manage, the Township Manager.
When I joined the council in mid-2019, the first thing I asked for were past performance reviews of the current manager at the time. It was then I learned that there were none. No performance reviews were ever conducted. In my first few years of Council, I pushed my peers to complete this step, to no avail.
Fast forward to when the Council had the opportunity to hire a new Township Manager. We knew we needed a manager with very strong project management experience. We needed someone who knew how to manage staff in a way that empowered them, and encouraged them to come forward with not only new ideas but also with issues and concerns. We needed someone who could effectively evaluate and manage vendors, to ensure we were getting top notch service, projects that were scoped appropriately and delivered on time.
We got all of that and more with Mr. D'Arco. He helped us get several projects back on track and completed, and made great strides with moving our people organization forward. On a personal level, I really enjoyed working with him, and appreciated his values and sense of humor. Good luck to him in his retirement!
Moving on, we passed our ordinance making minor changes to our Administrative code to reflect our new re-organization date, which will now be the first week of January.
We introduced a minor clarification to our new stormwater permit management fees to reflect fees mentioned in our stormwater ordinance.
With a few minor adjustments to the fee for out of town residents who attend pre-season concerts, we introduced 2025 pool fees. The general membership fee will increase 15% in 2025. If you have any final comments on pool fees, you can make them at the next meeting, or by emailing the entire Council here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform. We also introduced an ordinance setting the salaries for seasonal employees which will also have a public hearing at the next meeting.
Under resolutions, we appointed all of our professionals for 2025, which is an annual process. Professionals respond to an RFP annually and the Township Manager makes a recommendation to the Council.
We also declared 383 Bloomfield Avenue (a.k.a Hillcrest Farms) to be an Area of Need of Redevelopment. This opens up an opportunity for the site to be re-developed. This was at the request of the property owner.
[Addendum post original posting] Another important step we voted on were the new "pool rules". After we received feedback from the Recreation Advisory committee, there was a slight reversal on the policy change to increase the age that children can attend the pool unsupervised from 12 to 14. Children ages 12 and 13 will still be allowed to enter the pool on their own, but they are in a probationary period. If they violate pool rules they will very quickly loose the privilege of being able to go to the pool without an adult. I think this is a fair step and should help the staff address some disciplinary issues with the youngest members.
Those were the highlights! If you have any questions or concerns, please email the entire Council here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.