The Meeting Minutes Tempest in a Teapot
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
At the 8/19/2026 West Amwell Township Committee meeting, one of the more curious discussions was about the format of Meeting Minutes. Specifically, the Township Attorney did not just advocate for a severely truncated form of minutes, but she actually railed at length against people having statements read into the record verbatim.
This was a truly bizarre incident, because Attorney Quiñones Perez confused the living hell out of everyone. Even her advocates on the Township Committee didn't know what she was talking about.
She opened the conversation at the mayor's behest with this statement:
Attorney Quiñones Perez: "So when you were doing minutes on maria's doing a great job there is the factual record right that you keep of the meeting itself which really just is you know here's what happened here's the ordinance here's who voted for what here's the summary of someone that came up and it's it's not very typical to have statements read into the record when you're reviewing your minutes it almost looks like those statements are fact and that's just not the case and so i think it's it's adding a little bit of confusion to your minutes and they don't feel very clean There's an easy way to deal with it. You can certainly have statements submitted as correspondences.You guys have, like, every correspondence that comes in here".
She went on to state: "What I'm telling you is when you read your minutes, you have your statements as if they are factual. They are not right someone could come up to your dais and say whatever they want about whoever they want at any time that they want it does not make it factual but you're just statement it really only comes from you what happened at the meeting but it's it's it's the way you if you looked at your minutes the way you have them broken out it's as if this statement is Factual and it's just not all right. So this so let me just say this and then you can decide".
There was then raucous discussions for the next 15 minutes or so which basically picked the attorney's arguments apart. This was not a difficult task, because Attorney Quiñones Perez literally made no sense. As I mentioned, even the attorney's supporters were confused and somewhat alarmed at her claims. Joan Vanderveen (D) offered some simple formatting changes to clarify such statements, and Perez promptly and abruptly tried to shoot her down.
When the Township clerk takes a statement "for the record" from a public comment or elsewhere she clearly indicates that the statement is being read into the record verbatim, puts quotes around the statement, and it is also in italics. As one example, here is part of a special statement made by then-Committeeperson Robin Deal at the September 3, 2025 meeting. This is an exact screenshot of this part of the minutes:
If you are take our Township Attorney at face value, she is unable to distinguish the statement above from other part of the meeting Minutes.
This is all very troubling. I really only see two possibilities here:
Incompetence. Our Township Attorney truly cannot distinguish between clearly delineated statements read into the record vs other parts of the minutes. If this is true, she should be dismissed immediately for cause, because an attorney who is this dysfunctional should not be practicing law, let alone representing our township
Misdirection and lack of transparency. Our Township Attorney is lying through her teeth. She wants to dumb down our meeting minutes so no one can actually figure out what went on Township meetings. She also specifically wants to get rid of politically troublesome statements and throw them somewhere where no one will ever be able to see them or even find them without substantial effort. If this is true - well, guess what, she should be dismissed immediately for cause, because we do not need or want a Township attorney is allergic to transparency and openness.
I have written both privately to the Township Committee, and in public, about my misgivings about our new Township Attorney. She came on board with the so-called "change of the guard" when the majority switched from Republican to Democrat. Since she has started, she has made a number of gaffes and missteps that we can ill afford as a small town that does not have a war chest to defend against ham-handed people representing us.
This same attorney, Arlene Quiñones Perez, told the three Democratic Township officials on the Township Committee it was perfectly OK for them to meet behind closed doors at the municipal building, despite forming an illegal quorum. She undermines the Township Committee Authority by trying take control of meetings and even daring to lecture residents when she is not an elected official and has no power to assert anything at our meetings. She seems to either struggle or mangle even basic municipal laws. Audience members have had to shout references to Township codes because she doesn't seem to know them, even at a high level.
Based on my research, her primary qualification that recommended her to the Township comes straight from her professional bio at her law firm: "Arlene served as the Chair of the Hunterdon County Democratic Committee for a decade."
To be clear, I don't care what political party our attorney belongs to, and no on else really should either. Because it shouldn't matter. Our Township Attorney is not a political appointment, it's an apolitical job meant to protect West Amwell's best interests legally. So we can have a (D), an (R), an (I), or a member of the Martian Liberation Political Action Front for all I care. It shouldn't matter, if the person does the job right.
But our attorney seems to be nakedly political first and foremost, and law is a very distant second from what I can see.
I'll close with a brief article from the New Jersey Globe when she stepped down as the chair. Is this who we want protecting West Amwell's best interests? Or is she just going to get us sued over and over again with her inexperience and obvious left-political bent?
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