By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – At a regular meeting Oct. 26, council members unanimously approved the hiring of Thomas Seaman as the borough’s new chief financial officer (CFO) and financial director. The borough had been looking to fill the position of CFO after the resignation of Peter O’Reilly in September 2021.
Council member Angela Mirandi, head of finance and personal committee, attended the meeting virtually. Mirandi welcomed Seaman to the borough, thanking Steven Gallagher and Bob Swisher for helping while the position remained open.
According to a release from the council, Mirandi, previously a certified public accountant, tracks expenses and borough appropriations. “Hiring a permanent CFO will stop the hemorrhaging of funds the town pays out to consultants,” she said.
The release also outlined Seaman’s long history serving various municipalities. He previously served in Long Branch as treasurer; Shrewsbury Borough as CFO, tax collector and administrator; Little Silver as tax collector; and Deal and Seaside Park as Chief Municipal Finance Officer and interim administrator. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics with emphasis in accounting.
Council Candidate
Calls for Investigation
During the meeting, Republican candidate for council Jonathan Penny called for “the council to open an investigation into the firing of the borough attorney.”
According to emails he had obtained from an OPRA (Open Public Records Act) request, Penny said, “Councilman Zipprich and his majority fired the borough attorney, leaving our town without counsel for an entire month.
“Mayor Menna, you rightly called this a lack of transparency, courtesy or decency, and this is the exact kind of chaos that Red Bank voters are fed up with,” he said.
According to Penny, details of emails exchanged among council members Ed Zipprich, Michael Ballard and Jacqueline Sturdivant show they met with borough attorney Greg Canon to demand his resignation. “They then had attorney Canon prepare a resolution for his own firing,” Penny said.
He also cited an email from Zipprich about the appointment of a new borough attorney, Scott Salmon. “This email copied council members Ballard, Sturdivant and Mirandi – a quorum – and even copied Scott Salmon, who wasn’t even appointed, but excluded Mayor Menna, council woman Horgan, or council woman Triggiano,” Penny said.
These emails are “likely violating the Open Public Meetings Act,” he concluded and asked, “in the interest of transparency,” for the council to open an investigation.
Salmon was not named borough attorney as Mayor Pasqule “Pat” Menna refused to approve the appointment at a borough meeting. A few weeks later, Dan Antonelli was named the new attorney.
Penny pushed for a three-pronged investigation into the incident: He asked if Zipprich shared any confidential borough information with Salmon; did Zipprich and other council members violate the Open Public Meetings Act with their discussions about firing Canon; and how did an appointment get placed on an agenda without the mayor knowing about it in advance.
Penny also questioned Mirandi if she had “discussed the firing of Greg Cannon or appointment of Scott Salmon with any fellow council members or Mr. Cannon before the July 12 Council meeting?”
In response to Penny’s statement, Menna said, “I wasn’t aware of it (the appointment) and I took what steps I could take legally. I did it respectfully, but I can’t answer the other questions because I was not privy to those discussions at all.”
Residents Give Input
on Master Plan
The borough held its second round of public workshops for resident input on the master plan at Pilgrim Baptist Church, Oct. 24.
Susan Favate, principal of BFJ Planning, has been developing the borough’s master plan with her team and shared the progress on the draft with the residents. Favate said all the inputs from public sessions will be refined and put together in a draft document in November or early December. “My hope is to have a full draft to the planning board before the end of the year,” Favate said, noting they are so far adhering to the 12-month timeline.
The public workshop had more than a dozen residents in attendance including Lauren Nicosia, a member of the Red Bank Zoning Board; Shawna Ebanks, director of community development, planning and zoning; and mayoral candidate Billy Portman among others.
“It’s good for people to understand this because a lot of people just don’t understand zoning planning,” Nicosia said as residents walked around with stickers and pencils to mark areas for improvement on the posters spread across the room.
Out of the many areas identified for possible change, resident Greg Fitzgerald said the vibrant feel of Red Bank doesn’t reach the West Side and one way to resolve that disconnect is to link Shrewsbury Avenue, Monmouth Street and Broad Street as a continuous business district where “folks could walk along Broad Street, shop, eat, and go down Monmouth, see a show with the Vogel, see a show at the Basie, get to the train station and then also go down Shrewsbury Avenue.
“Maybe not tomorrow, but you know, 5, 10, 15 years from now. That is my vision of Red Bank for the future,” Fitzgerald said.
Favate said she was pleased with the turnout for the meetings so far, especially on a rainy evening. The first session was held Oct. 13 at the Red Bank Middle School auditorium. Favate said online participation has been “robust” as well.
“I’d like this to be a town that’s safe and comfortable for people,” Portman said, noting walkability and affordable housing are paramount. “Coming in as a new mayor in 2023 and engaging in the current master plan process is very helpful because not only does it lay out a roadmap for Red Bank, but it gives me almost like a primer on all the issues that you’re going to be dealing with,” Portman said. “It’s really echoing a lot of the things that I’ve heard from the residents.” Portman is running unopposed for mayor in the Nov. 8 election.
According to the timeline for the master plan on the borough’s website, the project started with community engagement, focus groups, public workshops, and more in January. The draft will be put up for public hearing this month and will be revised accordingly before it is finally adopted by the end of December.
The article originally appeared in the November 3 – 9, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
