Minutes of the Lavallette Voters and Taxpayers meeting of January 18, 2008
The meeting was called to order by President Joe Marcianti. Also present were
1st Vice President Lach Cameron, Treasurer Alice Bass, Secretary Celeste Brockwell,
and Director Marie Lough. Absent were 2nd Vice President Pamela Boright and Director Ann Gorga.
Minutes and the Treasurer's report were accepted as read.
A correction to the minutes of December 14, 2007: LVT reported that Lenny's Restaurant spent
about $50,000-$60,000 on legal fees in their attempt to make use of their liquor license. The amount
spent was for combined legal and architectural fees.
Also, reported in our Newsletter was that their property was up for sale. To clarify, their property
was not their commercial property, but their house.
Update: They recently decided not to sell their house and took it off the market.
Membership:
Beach Report:
Alice Bass reported that she is ready, willing and able but has not been asked to participate on
any Beach Committee. The former Beach report that Alice was able to obtain only dealt with income,
not expenses.
School Report:
A part-time bookkeeper was hired two days a week to be paid $17 per hour--$10,000 annually to assist
the School Business Administrator. There was one dissenting vote by a Board member who felt it was
an unnecessary expenditure. The School has been cited in the past for heavy costs in the
administrative area. Of concern, is the State looking at school consolidation with one factor
being comparison of costs to operate a school and its population.
The Point Pleasant Beach Board of Education is investigating solar as an alternate energy source.
Lavallette's Board of Education will monitor the result.
Municipal:
- Newly hired non-contractual employees prescription plan was modified-
co-payment will be higher.
- Settled with all union contracts, but did not get anything back in productivity according to Councilman Joe Ardito who attended our LVT meeting. Asking also for 10% cuts in operating budgets in all departments.
- Approved higher municipal electric rates by ordinance
- Litigation with the NJDEP for alleged dune maintenance violations
- Recycling of paper products-newspapers, office paper, junk mail, cardboard, magazines all go in one container with lid-beginning on February 6th. A sticker for your container can be picked up at the recycling center.
- Exploring news racks that hold multiple boxes rather than individual ones.
- Looking into having a brokerage company advise the Borough as to when to buy energy at lowered costs.
- Investigating more cell towers on our water tower
- New ordinance limits amount of ground coverage to 20% of property area-includes pavers. (Ground coverage is defined as anything from the ground up to 18".) Hot tubs and swimming pools are excluded.
- All DPW trucks will be numbered and lettered for identification.
- The Parking Committee has not yet met.
Other LVT Business:
- Holiday Decorating Contest winners, The Szumaski Family, asked that their check be donated the Lavallette First Aid
- Scholarship committee was established: Ben Brockwell, Lach Cameron and Marie Lough
- Internal Audit Committee appointed: Celeste Brockwell, Marie Lough and Joe Marcianti
- $50. will be sent to the State of NJ for our annual report
- $1800 was approved for printing and mailing of our Winter Newsletter
Discussion by a member related concerns about parking on Camden Ave. in the summer. Doubling-up on the amount of people in a rental causes overcrowding in the houses as well as parking problems. A specific situation was cited as a home on Camden Ave. that has
4 bedrooms, use of an attic for living space and no driveway.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:47 p.m.
