Scotch Plains - Fanwood Times onlyPage 10 Thursday, February 12, 2015 The Westfield Leader and The Scotch Plains – Fanwood TIMES A Watchung Communications, Inc. Publication

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CountyAlso on Thursday’s agenda was a

resolution to appoint the law firmof Javernaum Wurgraft HicksWikstrom & Sinins, P.C. of Spring-field to represent former UnionCounty Juvenile Detention Centerofficer Sherrie Brown-Braswell ina lawsuit entitled Shiquon Fowlervs. County of Union at a cost of$20,000. The guard has beencharged with sexually assaulting ateenage boy at the facility and theboy’s family is now suing thecounty.

The board also considered a reso-lution to increase funding to $40,000to the law firm of Florio & Kenny ofHoboken to represent the county inthe same case.

Michael Fleming, acting adminis-trator of the Cornerstone BehavioralHospital of Union County, said acouple of psychiatrists have left thehospital and that Cornerstone hasreached an agreement with TrinitasRegional Medical Center in Eliza-beth to provide two full-time psy-chiatrists by the middle of the year.The county is leasing Cornerstonefrom the Center Management Groupof Queens, N.Y. after selling RunnellsSpecialized Hospital to the companyin December.

Freeholder Al Mirabella said hewill sponsor a condolence resolutionfor tonight’s regular meeting inmemory of Westfield Fire Chief DanKelly, who passed away on February3 of cancer at the age of 54.

Zoning Officer to RecommendChanges to Land Dev. Ord.

By CHRISTINA M. HINKESpecially Written for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times

CRANFORD — Township ZoningOfficer Robert Hudak has recom-mended amending the land develop-ment ordinance the planning boardsigned off on and township committeepassed in December. Mr. Hudak is tomake his final recommendations to thetownship council Monday at the work-shop meeting.

Within the ordinance, building cov-erage maximums were added. Sincethe ordinance was passed, he said mostof the homes in Cranford are non-conforming in building coverage. Thiswould mean any construction to a homewould need a variance sought and wouldburden the taxpayer and the zoningboard.

“If all these houses are non-conforming…their houses are worth-less then. That is a big issue,” Mr.Hudak said at the Cranford PlanningBoard’s February 4 meeting.

Building coverage is the percentageof the lot area covered by a home orattached garage, Mr. Hudak said. Thisis different from lot coverage, whichincludes building coverage and imper-vious surfaces such as driveways.

“I think we need to recognize ourissues with flooding and impervioussurface…What we need to be con-cerned about is impervious surface,”Board Vice-Chairwoman Lynda Federsaid.

In 2009, the township had concernswith McMansions being built on smallproperties and changes to lot coveragewere put in place to “severely curtaildevelopment,” Mr. Hudak said.

Mr. Hudak said he is still investigat-ing the matter. He will present his rec-ommended changes to the percentagesof building coverage in the variousresidential zones at Monday’s councilmeeting.

During the public portion of lastWednesday’s planning board meeting,

resident Frank Krause again broughtup his issue with the North Avenuecorridor. He has concerns with how theboard of adjustment has approved ap-plications for two new banks: InvestorsSavings Bank, to be built next to theRustic Mill Diner, and Two River Bank,on the corner of Lincoln and NorthAvenues. He believes the front-yardsetbacks are too shallow and that thereis a public-safety issue with ingress andegress of traffic to the banks. He hadpreviously addressed the township com-mittee and planning board on theseissues.

Paul Lachenauer for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood TimesFUTURE LEADERS...The Education Enrichment Foundation (EEF) of ScotchPlains-Fanwood and the Scotch Plains-Fanwood School District co-sponsored aleadership training conference for middle-school students on Saturday morningfor the sixth consecutive year. This year more than 125 new student leaders weretrained. The program, under the leadership of Phyllis Mirabella of the EEF, hasover 70 volunteers who help make it a success for the district. Westfield Honors Chief

Kelly; Approves OrdinancesBy DOMINIC A. LAGANO

Specially Written for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times

WESTFIELD — At its regular pub-lic meeting Tuesday evening, theWestfield Town Council began itsproceedings by honoring Fire ChiefDan Kelly, who passed away lastweek.

A longtime resident of Westfieldwith more than three decades of ex-perience as a firefighter, Chief Kellywas Westfield’s Fire Chief for thepast 10 years.

The assembly observed a momentof silence for Chief Kelly followedby Mayor Andy Skibitsky’s remarks,which follow in part, “The passing ofChief Dan Kelly is a tremendous lossto our community. He will be missed.We will forever be grateful for hisnearly 34 years of exceptional ser-vice to the Town of Westfield.

“On behalf of the Town Counciland the townspeople he valued serv-ing so much, we offer our collectiveheartfelt condolences to Chief Kelly’sfamily.”

The council next passed two ordi-nances on first reading.

The first ordinance is concernedwith the Tamaques Park Tennis CourtRenovation Project.

First discussed a year ago, theproject will entail resurfacing the eighttennis courts at Tamaques Park inaddition to widening them. Besidesbeing available to town residents, thetennis courts also serve as the homecourt of the high-school tennis teams.

The project would be paid for bythe issuance of a bond ordinance; thebond authorized for the project totals$235,000, and the town also is able touse $275,000 from other sources to-ward the work, for a total sum of$510,000. Contributions for thisproject also will come from theWestfield Board of Education, towntrust fund monies and from UnionCounty in the form of a grant.

“We spoke about this project firstlast year,” stated Town AdministratorJim Gildea. “This project will be hope-fully adopted bond-wise and look tobe awarded (a contract) in March andwhen the weather breaks, will start.

“The recreation commission hasalready been in touch with the boardof education about the scheduling ofthe tennis season,” stated Mr. Gildea.“It has been a long-time-comingproject and a very good improve-ment for the town.”

The second ordinance that waspassed on first reading further clari-fies the town’s Historical Designa-tion and Preservation Ordinance ofthe Town of Westfield by amendingits language.

As part of the re-codifying projectundertaken by Councilman Jim Foerstas chairman of the council’s CodeReview and Town Property Commit-tee, the measure was designed to ad-

dress language in the original ordi-nance deemed “confusing.”

“As we do these things, we seeobviously there’s changes to be madeand not only to update it but there’ssomething that we found in here thatwe wanted to clarify,” stated Mr.Foerst.

“The ordinance basically says if 75people agree in the district then thedistrict can be designated and therewas just a little bit of ambiguity abouthow that process happens. So we’ll bevoting on that to just clean that up,”stated Mr. Foerst. “And after we dothat, then I think we’re ready to pro-ceed on our first historic district desig-nation that we’ve seen since KimballAvenue in the 1980s. So for histori-ans, this is quite an exciting time.”

In other news, the council approvedthe demolition of a single-family dwell-ing located at 127 Harrow Road as wellas single-family dwellings and detachedgarages located at 415 Everson Placeand 679 Rahway Avenue.

The next town council conferencesession open to the public is sched-uled for Tuesday, February 24, at 7p.m., at the municipal building, lo-cated at 425 East Broad Street. Theconference session will be immedi-ately followed by the council’s regu-lar public meeting at 7:45 p.m.

year, had resigned.At the board’s reorganization meet-

ing on January 8, Mr. Gialanella, thehusband of Deputy Mayor ColleenGialanella, defeated Ken Anderson,who had served as chairman for fiveyears, in an unusual secret-ballot vote.Afterwards, Mr. Gialanella was thentasked with running the remainder ofthat brief meeting, and several timesrequired assistance and promptingfrom Mr. Anderson on certain proce-dures and protocol. These delayseventually led Mr. Abeel to mutterimpatiently about Mr. Gialanella’sperformance, leading the new chair-man to castigate Mr. Abeel for hisremarks, and Mr. Abeel telling Mr.Gialanella, “You’re the chairman now.Run the meeting!”

Their conversation continued afterthat meeting, with Mr. Abeel againcriticizing what he felt was Mr.Gialanella’s lack of preparation, atone point telling the new chairmanthat if he was not familiar with theways the board was supposed to beled, he should not have accepted thepost.

“It’s going to be a long year,” Mr.Gialanella then tersely told Mr. Abeel,who opted not to comment on hisresignation when contacted by TheScotch Plains-Fanwood Times.

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SP Zoning

Paul Lachenauer for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood TimesAT ATTENTION...Members of the Westfield Fire Department stand at atten-tion outside the Church of St. Helen on Saturday morning for the funeral of FireChief Dan Kelly.

Cranford Passes ParkingRestrictions; Reviews Budget

By CHRISTINA M. HINKESpecially Written for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times

CRANFORD — The township’s2015 departmental budget reviewcontinued Tuesday at the townshipcommittee’s conference session heldprior to the official meeting. Thehealth department and TV-35 dis-cussed each of their department’sbudgets with the committee mem-bers.

The health department salary re-mains flat, Monika Koscova-Jencik,registered environmental healthspecialist, told the committee. Thedepartment is in need of a newcopier and the low bid came in at$5,000, she said. The Environmen-tal Commission has a budget of$3,500, she said.

Ed Davenport of TV-35 said thestation’s budget, “has stayed mostlythe same.” The maintenance and re-pair budget totals $130,221 and isused for repairs of cameras, tapemachines and other equipment. Anadditional cost of $1,500 for accessto the Omni music library that safe-guards against copyright infringe-ment and offers 25,000 songs for thechannel to use for its broadcast wasincluded in the budget. Also, $2,800is an annual fee for broadcasts to bemade available on the pay channelas an on demand option for TV view-ers. “We had to add $12,000 to getour radio station back on the air,”Mr. Davenport said. “We need it foremergency backup.”

During the official meeting, thecommittee passed the rescinding ofan ordinance that establishes a con-servation utility.

“This does not impact the conser-vation center, the environmentalcommission or the green team,”Mayor Andis Kalnins said.

The committee also passed threeordinances that will restrict parkingon a portion of South Union Avenue asa means to deter long-term parking bycommuters. There will be a time re-striction between Washington andChristopher Street on South UnionAvenue between 9 a.m. and noon,Commissioner Mary O’Connor said.

Adjustments to the salaries of thepolice chief and the assistant chieffinancial officer (CFO) were madein the adoption of an ordinance fix-ing salaries and wages. The salaryrange for the police chief is between$148,000 and $174,803, and theCFO is between $53,657 and$73,000.A resolution that authorizesan amendment to the township com-mittee bylaws was passed by a voteof 4-to-1, with Commissioner TomHannen, Jr. opposing the amend-ment.

“I think this ordinance is ratherbroad and I would not want to see thisused for a bludgeon or attack on anycommissioner,” Mr. Hannen said.

“The conflict of interest law is astatutory law…,” Deputy Mayor LisaAdubato said.

The resolution prohibits commis-sioners who have a conflict of inter-est on a certain matter to be in theroom during discussion of that par-ticular matter, Ms. Adubato said.She said in the past it was unclearthat when a conflict of interest waspresent if that person should be privyto the discussions of the matter. “It isa simple clarification,” she added.

“By leaving the room, we elimi-nate the appearance of conflict,”Commissioner Robert D’Ambolasaid.

“Each of the committee memberswere elected by voters… By prohib-iting a person’s ability to be in theroom… disenfranchises those vot-ers who sent those commissionershere with a specific job in mind,”Commissioner Hannen said.

The committee passed a resolu-

tion authorizing the mayor to enterinto a settlement agreement withGovernment Strategy Group, a con-sultant that provided chief financialofficer services for a period of ap-proximately two years, MayorKalnins told The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times. The township hassince hired an in-house chief finan-cial officer.

The new Mexican restaurant, River& Rail Cantina, slated to open at theRiverfront, was authorized by reso-lution to accept a person-to-persontransfer of a liquor license.

A resolution was passed that des-ignates $9.7 million of notes con-sisting of $9.55 million general bondanticipation notes and $141,151swim pool utility bond anticipationnotes. Those notes were funded at a0.25-percent interest rate, MayorKalnins said.

“We know those rates won’t lastand we are in the process of puttingtogether a debt management plan,”he said.

“We need to come up with a planwe can sustain over time. There is alot of discussion around the (state’s)Transportation Trust Fund. I recom-mend we continue to pressure ourstate leaders to make sure that isfunded so our roads do not crumble,”Mayor Kalnins said.

Mayor Kalnins also announcedthe $1 million authorized by thefederal government to complete theRahway River Basin Flood RiskManagement Feasibility Study bythe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Once the study is completed, thenext step would be to attain fundingfor construction.

The invocation said by Commis-sioner Connor was in honor of Fa-ther John McGovern, pastor emeri-tus at Saint Michael Roman Catho-lic Church, who died January 21 atthe age of 74.

“I worked many years with FatherMcGovern at the school and church,”Ms. Adubato said. “He was a sourceof comfort to many people in thecommunity… He will be missed.”

Gumbert and field 1 at Tamaques Park.It was agreed that, as any field that wascompletely sodded, it would be un-available for an entire season; it wouldnot be possible to resurface both fieldsin the same year.

It was agreed to hold a discussionwith representatives of the baseballassociation to decide on a way forward.

In another attempt to improve thetown’s sporting facilities, Mr.Kaufmann and commission memberJeff O’Conner are to investigate thecondition of the town’s outdoor basket-ball courts and obtain quotes to carryout remedial work.

Mr. Kaufmann told members therecreation department was already gear-ing up for the summer. The cost of thesummer playground program wouldincrease this year from $70 to $80, butthere were unlikely to be many otherchanges.

Mr. O’Connor said it was hoped tosoon be able to solicit bids for work onthe Memorial Park bathrooms.

New board of education representa-tive Chris Langhart was present at hisfirst meeting.

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Kehler Lights

Brian Trusdell for The Scotch Plains-Fanwood TimesFUNDING FLOOD STUDY…Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), at rostrumsurrounded by several state and local officials, announces the federal governmenthas approved funding to complete a flood mitigation study in the Rahway RiverWatershed.