MANCHESTER – Township Business Administrator Donna Markulic made a presentation before the governing body during a recent council meeting regarding the state’s best practices checklist.
“Every year we have to do what is called a municipal best practices inventory and the purpose of that inventory is for the state to obtain vital information about the status of municipal government practices in New Jersey. It is done to make sure the township is compliant with various laws and implements fiscal and operational best practices.
“It started out with the state wanting to ensure that municipalities were doing everything right and if they weren’t then they would hold their state aid back,” she said. “So if you score low you will lose a portion – if not all – of your state aid. So, obviously municipalities take this very seriously when this comes around. A lot of it was financially based early on and that is why it was out of the office of the CFO (chief financial officer) but it has sort of really branched out to all different areas of municipal government.”
She said some of those areas in this year’s inventory includes personnel issues, budget, capital projects, COVID-19, shared services, cyber security, pilot programs and opportunity zones, liquor licensing, environment, planning and economic development.
Markulic said there was a total of 60 questions but only 28 are scored. “Our score was 23. Even though there are only 28 (questions scored), the perfect score is only 24.5 because sometimes you don’t get a full point for each question. So we will not be losing any state aid and actually we did excellent this year in our answering of our questions.”
When asked if the municipality would get more state aid. Markulic said no.
“No such luck,” added Council President Sam Fusaro.
Residents can review the inventory on the township website according to Markulic.
During council reports Councilman Robert Hudak said, “we met as the master plan committee and we are continuing with our discussions about various land use ordinances and we are looking at changing and developing some of the uses and streamlining the land development ordinances so they are more user friendly.”
Hudak added, “it is still an ongoing process that will take a little more time but we will continue to meet. I also want to shout out to the teachers and students this week has been a roller coaster for them. I know they are operating at home right now and it is very hard on all of them and the teachers for all their hard work.”
Councilman James Vaccaro reported that he had attended a meeting with the mayor, Councilwoman Joan Brush, Markulic and her assistant and the trustees of the Renaissance development regarding future planning “that might affect their community.”
Vaccaro said he will be reporting details at the next council meeting of a forthcoming meeting of the Pinelands Municipal Council that he will be attending. That meeting is a call in meeting for mayors or their delegates due to the COVID-19 limitations.
The councilman also noted the passage of the recreational marijuana use ballot question during Election Day by two thirds vote legalizing its use as of January 1, 2021.
“However, the Senate and Assembly Committee both are coming up with different bills. For example, the capping of marijuana cultivators’ licenses originally there was going to be 28 over 12 months now it has been changed to 37 in two years,” Vaccaro said.
He added that a Union County lawmaker had submitted an amendment to remove all caps. “Other issues they are discussing is issues of work place protection for employees and how far employers can go with drug testing what will be done with the proceeds of the social equity excise tax that has been added to the bill.”
Vaccaro said, “many say the bill does not do enough for private and social equity in assess to the new industry. How will enforcement be affected, what will be the modification to their current procedures to react to the new marijuana legislation?”
“With all these prevailing issues, let’s be proactive with the protection of our youth. I now again, please ask and encourage council to consider discussing to prepare via a committee an ordinance or resolution banning the growth of marijuana within Manchester Township and banning the distribution of recreational marijuana within Manchester Township,” Vaccaro proposed.
He said that the township would be among a list of municipalities and county governments “that are holding fast in this viewpoint.” Vaccaro had asked the governing body at nearly each council meeting for more than a year, to consider measures that would ban or limit marijuana distribution and growth within the township.
The council elected to wait until the outcome was known of the ballot question vote stating that any passage of a regulation could be negated by outcome of the question and subsequent state legislation to govern distribution and growth of marijuana.
Vaccaro also reminded residents to again maintain social distancing, wear masks and frequently wash their hands during the current pandemic noting that “cases have substantially increased nationwide, especially in New Jersey and Ocean County.”
“Enjoy time with your family during these upcoming holidays,” Councilman Craig Wallis said.
