Englishtown kills idea for sharing services
Officials balk at $6,500 cost of pursuing grants
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

After months of discussion among Englishtown Borough Council members and residents over the issue of sharing some municipal services with another town, the die was cast and the answer was no.

After passing a resolution on Oct. 12 that appeared to set the wheels in motion for a study of shared services, the council reversed course on Oct. 26 upon learning that taxpayers would have to foot the bill for some work to be done.

The governing bodies of Manalapan and Englishtown initially passed resolutions seeking grants that would have paid for feasibility studies to be conducted of shared services. New resolutions were later passed to clarify which services would be shared and the cost to each municipality of the feasibility study.

On Oct. 19, the Manalapan Township Committee passed a pair of resolutions to apply for grants to study the merging of public safety (police) and municipal court services. The resolutions were contingent upon approval in Englishtown that did not materialize.

With the approval of an $18,000 Sharing Available Resources Efficiently (SHARE) grant for the public safety feasibility study, there would be $9,000 provided through the grant and the remaining $9,000 split by Manalapan and Eng-lishtown in the amount of $4,500 each, according to Man-alapan Administrator Alayne Shepler.

With the approval of the $8,000 SHARE grant for the municipal court feasibility study, there would be $4,000 provided through the grant and the remaining $4,000 split by Manalapan and Englishtown in the amount of $2,000 each, Shepler said.

Both resolutions were passed by a 4-0 vote at the Oct. 19 Manalapan committee meeting. Committeeman Drew Shapiro was not present.

The plan died a week later in Englishtown.

On Oct. 26, the council defeated a resolution that would have permitted Englishtown to join Manalapan in seeking grants to pay for feasibility studies that could have determined the benefits of merging the two towns’ public safety (police) and municipal court operations.

Voting down the resolution to apply for a SHARE grant were council members Jayne Carr, Harry Soden, Rudy Rucker and Anne Palmieri. Voting in favor of the resolution were Jayne Gallagher and Steve Simon.

The issue of sharing services with Manalapan — which completely surrounds Englishtown — became public when Englishtown Mayor Thomas Reynolds told residents at a May meeting that he was going to do what he could to keep Englishtown from financial disaster. Some residents later urged the council to keep the borough’s police department and not merge it with the Manalapan force.

During the Oct. 26 meeting, Carr, who is running unopposed to retain her seat on the council, asked Borough Attorney John O. Bennett why he charged Englishtown $156 on March 29 and $130 on April 8 for research done for the consolidation of the Englishtown police department when residents were not even aware of the plan until a May 25 council meeting.

According to information provided by Carr and distributed to council members, Bennett also charged Englishtown a total of $52 for telephone conversations he had with Steve McEnery on April 28-29.

Carr said she believes McEnery is the present chairman of the Manalapan Republican Party and said Bennett informed her that he spoke with McEnery on behalf of Manalapan Township Committee members.

This year, Manalapan Republican township committeemen Joseph Locricchio and Andrew Lucas have supported examining the idea of shared services as a means of reducing municipal expenses.

Bennett charged Englishtown $195 for attending a May 12 meeting with Manalapan officials and $26 for speaking with the News Transcript on May 23 about the interlocal services meeting, according to information provided by Carr.

The comments lead to a heated discussion between Carr and Bennett, who finally said the research that started in March and April for police consolidation was not directed at consolidating with Manalapan. He said the discussions about consolidation with Manalapan did not begin until a later date.

“There was no discussion about this SHARE grant costing us any money. You said it would not cost us a cent,” Carr then said to Reynolds. “And why does the resolution only reference the police department and the court system? This grant was supposed to explore the possibility of sharing all services. How could you present it as no cost to us when your attorney is talking to people about it and charging us for it as well?”

“In the talks we had over the last four or five months we were not sure how much it was going to cost,” Reynolds said.

The mayor’s response generated groans and comments from the audience and residents began to yell out, “You said this would cost us zero.”

Carr said she was upset because Englishtown would have had to put money out “just to look at the situation” of sharing services.

During the public portion of the meeting, Barbara Paula Kuchinski, a Democrat who is running for a council seat, questioned how Englishtown officials could consider passing resolutions that would cost the town money after initially claiming there would be no cost to the borough.

Kuchinski said that by “doing what they did,” officials gave Manalapan “carte blanche” to do what they wanted to do.

“You have already lost control of this important issue,” Kuchinski said.

She asked why other services were not being studied for consolidation.

Reynolds said other services might have contractual considerations that would have to be taken into account before the towns could think about merging them.

Several other residents came up to the microphone to say they were not aware that a feasibility study would cost the town anything at all.

As he had done before at previous meetings, Reynolds said sharing services was not a decision that would be made by council members, but by a referendum.

“Our job is to look and see how we can save money for the town, but you will decide on the issue by your vote,” the mayor said.

Englishtown Police Officer Jeff Hanlon asked Gallagher, who handles personnel matters for the council, why she had never mentioned Bennett’s bills noting the March and April phone calls about police consolidation to the public when the question of “secret” meetings with Manalapan officials in regard to sharing services came up repeatedly at council meetings.

Gallagher said the bills do not come to her for at least a month after they have been charged, therefore she had no way of knowing about the April 8 and April 28 charges. She gave the same response regarding the March 29 charges. She also said there were attorney’s charges that she did not find a need to question.

Hanlon asked Bennett who initiated the discussions about police consolidation. He asked who told Bennett to begin these talks long before the public knew anything about it. Hanlon asked if it was Simon, since he holds the title of police commissioner.

Simon said it was not him. Later, he said maybe it was him but that he could not remember for sure. No one could seem to remember who actually gave the direction to raise the issue.

In an effort to end the discussion, Reynolds took the responsibility and said, “at some point our council was directed to go and explore the legal ramifications of doing this.”

News Transcript staff writer Dave Benjamin contributed to this story.