The Municipal Land Use Board (MLUB) held the first government meeting of the new year last night with its re-organization meeting.
Mayor Carl Hokanson opened the meeting as the Chair pro tem until the new board members were sworn in and a Chair was elected.
The first order of business was to swear in four MLUB members. Glen Costello and Jay Robaina were re-appointed to three-year terms. Owen Iungerman was given the oath for the Alternate III position until December 31, 2017 and Gregory Delano was sworn in as Alternate IV until the end of this year. Code Enforcement Officer Peter Picarelli was appointed as a Class II member which is to be filled by a municipal official.
After the swearing-in ceremony, Mayor Hokanson spoke to the new board, “I think this year is going to be a very busy year for the board which is, hopefully, a good thing. We have one [development] already in the works as you know. Myself, Councilman Petrosky, and Councilwoman Storey, we’re already in negotiations with at least two to three more and hopefully as they say in “Fields Of Dreams” if you build it they will come. I appreciate it and I honestly feel that working together we can do a lot for the borough and for the citizens of this great town. So, I thank you and I applaud you for that.”
With that, the Board once again unanimously voted Loren Harms as the Board Chair with John Kennedy being elected Vice-Chair and Al Niche being chosen as the board secretary.
After the mayor relinquished the temporary seat and left the dais, Mr. Harms took his seat as the MLUB Chair again and commented, “I want to thank the board of having confidence in me and I take this position very seriously. I think the mayor is exactly right; we are going to have a busy year and I think it’s going to benefit our great town.”
The professionals were next on the agenda with Mohamed Jalloh re-appointed as the MLUB Attorney for a second year and Neglia Engineering returning as both the MLUB Engineer and Planner.
The MLUB’s budget was also approved at $13,850; a thousand dollars more than last year’s amount. The increase is reportedly needed to pay for required training of new board members. The Board’s budget will go before the governing body during its municipal budget workshops for review and final approval.
The other major business of the evening was the memorialization of four (4) resolutions, including MLUB Resolution 2015-15. This was a necessary step in order to have the governing body officially designate the lots from 218-256 West Westfield Avenue as an Area In Need Of Redevelopment at their Thursday night meeting. This will allow for a developer, as yet unnamed, to proceed with what needs to get done to start development on the eight (8) properties.
The meeting dates for 2016/2017 were approved with the following schedule:
- February 22, 2016
- March 21, 2016
- April 18, 2016
- May 16, 2016
- June 13, 2016
- July 18, 2016
- August 15, 2016
- September 19, 2016
- October 17, 2016
- November 7, 2016
- December 12, 2016
- January 3, 2017
All meeting dates with the exception of the first 2017 meeting are on a Monday. The January 3, 2017 meeting is scheduled for a Tuesday. All meetings are set to start at 7 p.m.
If there are no applications to be heard nor any business to be conducted on any scheduled meeting date, that meeting can be canceled. There is also a possibility throughout the year of one or more special meetings to be called if a particular application or issue needs to be addressed that cannot wait until a scheduled meeting date.