Inaction Continues On Shelter Proposal

(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Nov. 17, 2010)

PERTH AMBOY — Despite repeated requests by local businesswoman Wilma Matey for the City Council to vote to accept her proposal to provide animal-control services to the city, the Council again took no action last week.

At the previous meeting, Councilman Kenneth Gonzalez asked for the matter to be put on last week’s meeting-agenda, but it appeared only on a list of items to be discussed during a closed-door executive session.

A Resolution authorizing that session — which lasted an hour and 36 minutes — was moved by Councilman William Petrick, seconded by Councilman Josel Pabon Sr. and adopted 5-0.

But the governing body returned from the closed session and took no action.

Licensed Animal Control Officers (ACOs) Richard and Michal Cielesz, a husband-and-wife team who are now running the Perth Amboy Animal Shelter, foot of Fayette Street, under Police Department supervision, have agreed to partner with the volunteers headed by Matey, who formed Perth Amboy Happy Home Animal Shelter LLC.

After meeting at City Hall, High Street, with Matey, Mayor Wilda Diaz, Gonzalez and Petrick to see if an arrangement could be worked-out incorporating both proposals submitted to city officials, Richard Cielesz posed with the group for photographs in the Council Chamber, where an announcement was made that a tentative agreement had been reached.

That agreement was expected to be finalized at a yet-to-happen Council meeting with a vote by the full governing body.

A three-year lease with Matey’s group has been withdrawn from the Council’s meeting-agenda at-least four times after Council members had earlier voted to table a proposed agreement with neighboring Woodbridge Township.

During last week’s meeting, Matey urged the Council to “do the right thing to help the animals, whether you decline to approve it (her proposal) or go-forward. Just do it already.”

Shelter volunteer Virginia Morales encouraged Council members to “ride-around and look at the dead cats on the streets.”