Mayor Pasquale Menna arrives at Sunday’s reorganization meeting, followed by Council President Art Murphy. (Click to enlarge)
Entering a year in which the electoral prize will be Red Bank’s mayoralty, the borough’s all-Democratic governing body trumpeted a theme of ‘accountability’ to voters at Sunday’s annual reorganization session.
Councilman Mike DuPont, returning to start his second term, told a packed-house audience that he hoped voters with opposing ideas would continue to challenge him, as they did during his door-to-door re-election campaign, so that compromises might be found.
“I also want you to hold me accountable and keep us in line,” added Councilwoman Juanita Lewis.
“We will focus all of our efforts on fiscal accountability,” said Councilman Ed Zipprich, who, with Lewis, started his second year on the council.
Mayor Pasquale Menna, beginning the final year of his first term at the helm, offered a brief overview of economic conditions and priorities for the coming year. He said the council would focus on the revitalizing Monmouth Street between Maple and Bridge avenue, “which will only help the rest of the municipality, and will certainly help the train station area and the West Side.”
He touted the borough’s “extraordinary” success at landing money from the state and Monmouth County for projects such as the Count Basie Field artificial turf project and the train station renovation. And he said that even as the business district saw the departure of 44 stores and restaurants last year, “the good news is we’ve had 34 openings, ” plus eight others on Shrewsbury Avenue.
“So the net effect of the economic slump has been rather minimal,” he said.
Menna lobbied state Senator Jennifer Beck, a borough resident and former member of the council, for legislation that would “recognize that towns with a large percentage of non-taxable institutions” such as hospitals ans churches “should get a special allocation” from the state.
Other highlights of the event:
• Art Murphy was sworn in to start his third two-year term on the council. He was also chosen to continue as council president.
• DuPont was also sworn in, he for his second term. He’ll continue to head the council’s finance committee, which drafts the annual budget.
• Menna said acting police Chief Steve McCarthy is scheduled to be sworn in as chief at the council’s next regular meeting, slated for 6:30p on Monday, January 11.
• Former Mayor Ben Nicosia, a retired judge, was unable because of illness to attend to his customary duty of swearing officials into their posts. He was replaced by Judge Daniel Waldman.
As occurs most years at the event, the crowd exceeded the room capacity of 107, leaving more than a dozen onlookers out in the lobby straining to hear.
The list of mayoral appointments was not immediately available online at the borough website.
