MANCHESTER – The five-member Township Council unanimously appointed Samuel Fusaro as council president, and Craig Wallis as vice president, at the township’s reorganization meeting on January 4.
Fusaro replaced councilman James Vaccaro, while Wallis now occupies Fusaro’s vice president’s seat.
Fusaro, Vaccaro and fellow runningmate Charles Frattini, “The Continued Good Government Team,” were also sworn in at the meeting by clerk Sabina Skibo, having defeated Mayor Kenneth Palmer’s ticket – Ann Markovski, Felicia Finn and William Foor – in the November general election.
“I am proud to serve with you gentlemen, and I look forward to a great year,” Palmer said.
Wallis said it’s been a while since he filled a leadership seat on council. He said the guiding goal of council is to do what is best for the residents of Manchester.
“Both of us, Sam and I, don’t see this as political, it’s what’s best for the township, what’s best for the people,” he said. “There are a lot of things we can help with, there are things that we can’t do. But as long as we’re stepping forward and Manchester progresses, and we’re able to give better services with less cost, we can’t do too much more than that.”
He was elected to council in 2006. His current term ends at the end of 2018.
Fusaro is a long-standing member of the current government. He and members of the Stop Tax Oppression Promptly won council seats in 1990 and changed the government to a nonpartisan mayor/council form. He’s been on council for 21 nonconsecutive years and served as council president for five.
He was proud of the township’s adoption of its abandoned property list. “That’s cleaned up a lot of our problems and also made significant funds for Manchester.”
Fusaro also spoke about plans for 2017.
“There’s always things that have to be done,” Fusaro said. “We still have some land use ordinances to tweak. I’d like to see the energy aggregation contract get through. Other than that, we address issues as they come up, when we see them. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of taking care of things before they become problems.
“I think Manchester will have a great year.”
One change to appointments was the auditor, according to Fusaro. The appointed auditor, Joseph Faccone of Samuel Klein & Co., was the lowest bidder. An amount for services was not provided, but only certified that funds were available in the 2017 temporary budget.
Fusaro also told The Manchester Times that engineers and attorneys were added “to complete certain jobs during 2017.” He did not have names, and that information was not available by press time.
The township council will meet the second and fourth Mondays at 6 p.m. at the municipal building, 1 Colonial Drive. Meeting dates are January 23; February 13 and 28; March 13 and 27; April 10 and 24; May 8 and 22; June 12 and 26; July 10 and 24; August 14 and 28; September 11 and 25; October 10 and 23; November 13 and 27; and December 11.
