1/2 – Red Bank Hires New Borough CFO

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By John Burton
RED BANK – The new year brings a new chief financial officer.
Mayor Pasquale Menna and Borough Councilman Michael DuPont announced during the New Year’s Day municipal reorganization that Eugenia Poulos, 53, a Point Pleasant resident, has been hired as the new CFO.
According to officials, Poulos is coming to the borough from Seaside Park, where she has been CFO for the last five years.
She was one of six applicants who were under consideration for the post, Menna said.
Poulos will replace Colleen Lapp, who left Red Bank to take the CFO job in neighboring Middletown. Menna said it was important to have the financial person in place as quickly as possible as officials work to prepare the municipal budget.
After working in Seaside Park, a community severely impacted by Super Storm Sandy – and failing any natural disasters – “Red Bank should be a walk in the park,” joked DuPont, who serves as the council’s finance chair. He will be working closely with Poulos to draft the 2014 municipal budget.
Poulos’s salary will be $98,520. She is expected to start on Jan. 16, Menna said.
The reorganization meeting had no surprises with the council moving to reappoint all of its professionals, continuing to retain its borough attorney, Daniel J. O’Hern Jr. and its engineering firm, T&M Associates, Middletown.
The council unanimously reappointed Councilman Arthur V. Murphy III as council president.
The only real change was on the council itself with Republican Cindy Burnham taking her seat among the five Democratic members and Democratic mayor. Burnham was sworn in to office by state Senator Jennifer Beck. R-Monmouth, a borough resident. The occasion brought out GOP heavyweights, including freeholders; Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, R-Monmouth,; Republican Committee Chairman and former state senator John O. Bennett III; and Sheriff Shaun Golden.
Democrat Kathy Horgan was sworn in for another three-year term, with former state Superior Court judge and former freeholder John D’Amico administering the oath.
Horgan’s Democratic running mate Sharon Lee saw her nine years on the council come to an end, but will still be active with Menna noting, “She’s not going anywhere.” Menna named Lee to the zoning board  and as the citizen representative to Red Bank RiverCenter, which manages the borough’s special improvement district.