By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – Capt. Michael Frazee will succeed Chief Darren McConnell as the borough’s new police chief, Mayor Billy Portman announced at the latest council meeting. The July 27 meeting started with a detailed background on the new council-manager form of government; the agenda also included a discussion to revise the graffiti ordinance, among other borough business.
Attorney Michael Collins, special counsel for the borough, gave a PowerPoint presentation to the governing body, outlining the new codes to be implemented with the change in government. The intention was to provide more insight to the governing body as it transitions to the new form of government.
Collins was also part of the charter study commission that put together the final report recommending a change in Red Bank’s 115-year-old form of government. Following the commission’s report, the new form was adopted by Red Bank voters and took effect when the new governing body was sworn in July 1.
Overview Of New Form Of Government
Collins provided a brief summary on what the new form requires. The new council-manager government will have a directly elected mayor. It will have six council members elected at-large, running staggered terms, which means that roughly half the governing body is elected every two years rather than everyone running every four years. The elections will be nonpartisan, meaning candidates will run without party affiliations on the ballot.
Among the changes in mayoral duties, Collins noted that the mayor has full voting rights in the new council-manager form of government, unlike the old borough form when the mayor could vote only in the event of a tie. Also, the mayor has no greater power than the council members in the new form; in the old form of government the mayor had veto power over ordinances.
The council, which served as both an executive and legislative body in the old form of government, will now only serve as a legislative body. It is also mandatory under state law for the new council to hire a municipal manager that carries out executive functions. The manager is appointed by the full governing body and is subject to removal by a simple majority vote of the council upon notice and public hearing if requested.
Appointment Of New Municipal Manager
Red Bank Police Chief Darren McConnell announced his retirement as police chief and borough administrator in June. July 31 was to be his last working day with the borough but due to “some pension issues,” Portman said, “we will have Darren for another month.” The terms of a new manager search will be announced at the next council meeting Aug. 10.
Collins provided details on the qualifications and responsibilities of the municipal manager. According to the presentation, the manager may be a resident of the borough, but the council has the authority to waive the residency requirements if needed. The manager will carry out policies established by the council. Additionally, the manager will serve as a chief executive and administrative official for the borough to execute all laws and ordinances, appoint and remove department officials – except the tax assessor – make recommendations to the council for municipal improvements, attend all meetings as a nonvoting member of the council, prepare the municipal budget and more.
Graffiti Ordinance
After some public outcry on social media, the mayor and council discussed revising an existing ordinance to curb the increase in graffiti around the borough. Council member Kate Triggiano asked for the issue to be added to the agenda. “There’s been a lot of public concern about the increase of graffiti and I thought a great place to start would be to look at what’s actually on the books and what’s actually being implemented,” she said, urging residents to Google “chapter 382, graffiti, Red Bank, NJ.”
“It is a problem this year more than past years,” McConnell said. Remediation is “burdensome, not only for property owners but particularly for DPW (Department of Public Works) because a large amount of the graffiti we’re seeing this year is on public property parks.”
McConnell said Marine Park, Riverside Gardens Park and East Side Park have bathrooms “literally covered on the inside” with graffiti but, he said, the DPW cleans it up within 24 hours.
McConnell also noted that it is “harder to enforce” graffiti laws these days because, while “a good number are spray paint, a good number also Magic Marker.” The police department has captured kids on camera using “a small marker that’s not much bigger than my pen,” McConnell said, “which makes it difficult to enforce because you find the kid with a marker that says he didn’t do anything wrong. You find the kid with a can of spray paint, it’s a lot harder for him to explain that.”
The ordinance from 2003 defines graffiti as “Any inscriptions, words, figures or designs that are drawn, etched, marked, painted, pasted, scratched, stapled or otherwise affixed on any real or personal property. This includes commercial graffiti, commonly involving the posting of bills or stickers, which means any advertisement or notice of a commercial nature.”
According to the existing ordinance, any person who is convicted of a graffiti offense is subject to “imprisonment not to exceed 90 days and to a fine not less than $250 but not to exceed $1,000.” In addition to any other penalty imposed by the court related to damage compensation, a mandatory fine of not less than $50 is to be paid to the Graffiti Trust Account.
A Graffiti Trust Account established in the borough currently charges violators only $50. Triggiano suggested that “money from that trust could be used for a public mural as a remedy to remediate that issue.” Triggiano explained that the fund will be for municipal buildings but if a bathroom building or a park is being hit with graffiti consistently, it could be replaced with public art using the Graffiti Trust Account.
Greg Cannon, borough attorney, said currently, “There is no fine for failure to remove graffiti following notice. That’s the first thing that needs to be added” to the ordinance. Cannon also suggested updating the definition of graffiti in the ordinance “that protects the artists in Red Bank,” addresses “sticker slapping” all over the borough and defines police or municipality power significantly to help enforcement.
Cannon cited the Borough of Rutherford’s graffiti ordinance when noting most of the graffiti is done by teenagers. “The current Red Bank ordinance doesn’t make the parent responsible for minors,” he said but the Rutherford ordinance states, “if the child is caught, it requires the parents to attend community service with the child upon conviction in municipal court.”
Council member David Cassidy raised concerns when defining “a parent being negligent for the care of their child, because a lot of parents are working parents. I don’t want to put anyone in this community at a disadvantage where suddenly they’re being judged as a parent in an unfair manner,” he said. “This is a very minor crime that can be cleaned up and reconciled. I don’t want to start putting families on trial and parenting on trial in this community.”
Portman asked Cannon to make sure that parental responsibility “doesn’t make its way” into the revised ordinance.
The article originally appeared in the August 3 – 9, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
