(Reprinted from Oct. 6, 2010 Amboy Beacon)
SOUTH AMBOY — A Special Meeting held early last week to adopt an amendment to the Calendar Year 2010 Budget and the Budget itself ended with the three City Council members in-attendance — the barest number for a quorum — refusing to take any action on the spending plan.
After voting on a Resolution moved by Councilman William Schwarick, seconded by Councilman Mark Noble and adopted 3-0 to appoint Business Administrator Camille Tooker as Acting City Clerk, the Council adjourned into a closed-door executive session because “the Council has to be brought up-to-speed about some problems with negotiations,” Council President Fred Henry explained.
Councilmen Donald Applegate and Joseph Connors — both of whom are running in the Nov. 2 election — were absent.
At 6:30 p.m., Henry came-out to inform the audience that the Council would be out for “another five minutes” because “we’re waiting for a call from our Auditor.
“We don’t have a professional here now,” he added.
“That’s for-sure,” someone in the audience called-out.
The three Council members attending the second Special Meeting emerged 23 minutes later with Mayor John O’Leary and took their seats.
“I feel personally that I cannot vote to adopt this Budget because it’s not fair to the taxpayers of South Amboy,” Noble declared.
“I concur,” Schwarick added. “There’s a decision on additional revenue coming from the state. We had a deal with a developer who agreed to purchase Amboy Aggregates for $800,000, but at 4 p.m., the rug was pulled-out from under us.”
O’Leary interjected to correct Schwarick’s statement.
“O’Neill Properties, the contract-purchaser for Amboy Aggregates, also had signed a contract to purchase one acre next to it known as ‘the restaurant site,’” he said.
“At 1 p.m., we had an agreement from DCA (state Department of Community
Affairs) Commissioner Thomas Neff, but at 4 p.m., this anticipated revenue source was not accepted,” the Mayor stated.
“Obviously, we have no vote for the Budget tonight,” Henry said. “”We had a deal already-made, everything was set, and then apparently an anonymous call was made that this was not a real LLC (Limited Liability Company).
“We’re fighting a tax-increase, and for whatever reason, it’s not coming-about,” he said. “We’re talking only about one acre of land where the (South
Amboy) Boat Club was. A deal was made, but at 4 p.m., we received a call that the deal was off.”
The Council’s inaction subjected the three members in-attendance to the possible assessment of individual $25-a-day fines against them by DCA.
O’Leary castigated DCA officials for not accepting what he referred-to, interchangably, as “O’Neill Companies,” “O’Neill Properties” and “The O’Neill Group,” a Pennsylvania-based redevelopment firm specializing in contaminated properties and the redeveloper of the former NL Industries site in neighboring Sayreville, whom he said is the contract-purchaser of Amboy Aggregates.
At a previous Special Meeting held six days earlier, the Council conducted a scheduled public hearing on amendments to the CY 2010 Budget which would increase local taxes by $722,576, taking no action at that time except to schedule another Special Meeting.
The new tax-increase shown there would be on top of the $39 hike previously-announced by the Administration and the Council on a home assessed at $266,000, the average in South Amboy. Using the numbers provided with the CY 2010 Budget as introduced, the amended Budget would result in a $268 tax-hike on the average home.
City Law Director John Lanza and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Terance O’Neill were absent from both Special Meetings.
The amendments as introduced earlier would increase the total amount of the CY 2010 Budget by $1,553,543, from $13,993,033 to $15,546,576, and the amount to be raised by local taxes by $722,576, from $7,129,425 to $7,852,001.
But City Auditor Gary Higgins said at the first Special Meeting that “within the past hour at-most,” certain unnamed “developers” had provided city officials hope that they might be able to anticipate an additional “$800,000”
in new revenues.
“If the $800,000 comes-through, there will be about a $30 increase for this calendar-year,” he stated.
Higgins indicated that a DCA official would have to approve the “other revenues” in order for the city to include them in the CY 2010 Budget.
“Normally, DCA doesn’t let you anticipate funds,” Council President Fred Henry stated at that time. “Talking with the DCA people today, they said they’d allow us to do it.”
“It appears that the developers are providing us with the documents we need so we can move-forward,” O’Leary stated at the first Special Meeting.
A source familiar with municipal budgeting indicated to the Amboy Beacon after the first Special Meeting that DCA will allow municipalities to anticipate revenue from developers “only if there’s signed contracts.”
In anticipating revenues, a municipal government runs the risk of not collecting that revenue — part of the reason for neighboring Perth Amboy’s fiscal problems.
The Beacon has obtained a copy of a two-page Agreement signed by Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Eric Chubenko and Richard Heany, President of Amboy Waterfront Acquisition Associates LP, providing for the payment of $800,000 to the City of South Amboy by Dec. 15 for the one-acre parcel as part of a $3.8 million property purchase.
However, an “escape-clause” in the contract allows the entity to withdraw from the Agreement “at it’s (sic) discretion,” and to “compel” the Agency
to sell the property and return “the deposit.”
According to a Business Entity Status Report provided by the N.J. State Business Gateway Service, Amboy Waterfront Acquisition Associates LP is a “foreign (Delaware) Limited Partnership” (not an LLC), which filed on Sept. 27, the date of the second Special Meeting.
At the second Special Meeting, some residents expressed support for the Council members who declined to vote for any CY 2010 Budget that did not include the $800,000 in anticipated revenue.
“I have to commend you gentlemen for doing what you did,” Nancy McLaughlin said. “It took guts.”
“First, let me assure you that I did NOT call DCA,” Eileen Ryan stated.
“When I did, I told you I did.”
She went-on to say, “I respect these two gentlemen (Noble and Schwarick) for being-here. Could the others have just had a flu or something?”
But Ryan insisted that “somebody’s giving you a story.”
Independent mayoral candidate Mary O’Connor challenged O’Leary and the Council to produce a copy of the contract “between O’Neill and the city.”
“Sure, just fill-out a Right-to-Know,” Henry respomded.
“The contract is between the contract-purchaser and the Redevelopment Agency, not the city,” O’Leary added.
According to the amendments introduced the previous week, 38 of 49 line-item accounts would be increased, while only 11 line-item accounts would be decreased.
The first Special Meeting was scheduled despite the fact that Henry had announced at the Council’s Sept. 1 meeting that a public hearing would be held on amendments to the Calendar Year 2010 Budget at the Council’s Sept. 15 meeting.
The calling of a Special Meeting to adopt amendments to the Calendar Year 2010 Budget was specifically rejected when it was suggested at the Sept. 1 meeting by former Councilman Stanley Jankowski, now a Board of Education member.
“You can’t pass it (the Budget) that night,” Jankowski insisted at that time. “You have to have two readings.”
“They can do it the same night,” attorney Thomas Lanza, sitting-in for his brother, John Lanza, stated. No legal counsel has attended the two Special Meetings.
“Why not just have a Special Meeting on the Budget?” Jankowski had asked.
“You could be sitting here for hours.”
“Hopefully, that’s not going to happen,” Henry said, before moving-on to another subect and then adjourning the Sept. 1 meeting.
Holding Special Meetings on a Tuesday and a Monday precluded most of the public from knowing about the hearing and about the coming increase in local taxes because reporters for the two out-of-county daily newspapers that usually cover the meetings were absent from the previous regular Council meeting, and reporters for the two weekly newspapers that cover Council meetings do not publish on Tuesdays. However, one of the reporters for an out-of-county daily newspaper that usually covers the meetings was present for the second Special Meeting.
In addition to the eight-page Budget Resolution attached to the first Special Meeting’s agenda, Higgins provided a 20-page Budget Presentation which he said “complied with” the “Best Practices Checklist” which he said was due to be submitted to state officials by Oct. 1.
Some numbers included in the Higgins document differed from those in the Budget Resolution, including the amount to be raised by local taxes, showing an increase of $694,138, from $7,157,863 to $7,852,001.
Tooker had noted at the Council’s last regular meeting that DCA required the final CY 2010 Budget to be approved by the Mayor and Council no later than Friday, Sept. 24.
There was no specific mention of an extension being granted by DCA, although Higgins said, “We’ll be working on it (the Budget) the next couple of days.”
At the Sept. 1 meeting, Ryan indicated that she was told by someone at DCA named “Amelia” that “DCA made several requests to the City of South Amboy about items in the Budget that they needed more information about, and there was no response whatsoever from the City of South Amboy.”
But Tooker denied Ryan’s information, including the identity of the person reviewing the CY 2010 Budget, stating that “the person who’s reviewing our Budget is a male.”
However, the Business Administrator later stated that the DCA person doing the review was named “Tina.”
No comments:
Post a Comment