West Amwell Township Committee Meeting February 19, 2025

The most recent public meting for the Township Committee was held Wednesday night, February 19th, 2025 at 7:30pm. The agenda is available here.

The Mayor made opening remarks thanking all of the Township workers for their hard work and perseverance during the recent winter storms.

Minutes

Approval of prior meeting minutes was discussed. There has been an ongoing disagreement on the content of the minutes that is still being resolved, and one set of minutes were tabled for the evening.

First Public Comment Period

The first public comment period saw one resident come to speak about a Township employee who was recently arrested in Pennsylvania, and questioned her eligibility to work for the Township given she resides in PA. The Township committee indicated that she had received a waiver as an out of state worker from the appropriate State department, and would chase down the paperwork. The same resident also requested the Township begins a compliance review of all departments.

Department Reports

Open Space reported that they had met for their 2025 reorganization meeting and elected officers. They are working hard on closing on one property and have a few others in the pipeline.

OEM reported that at the height of the storm 62% of properties were without power, and was down to just 2 properties as of that evening.

Resolutions

Resolution #02-2025A: Amending Resolution #02-2025: Organization of TC Meeting Agendas was discussed. Introduced by Committeewoman Deal, she is interested in amending the initial agenda resolution to allow the public to speak on any topic. She expressed concerns that the current language precludes residents from speaking their minds on many topics, including those that may be voted on in a given evening. There was discussion on whether adequate time was given for residents to speak, and to the number and nature of the public comment periods. It was pointed out there were minor issues in the original resolution that should probably be addressed. The Township Attorney indicated he would research the best way to amend the language and what the norms are around public commenting in general. This will be revisited in a future meeting.

Resolution #27-2025 - Appointing a qualified purchasing agent - Status update. The Mayor indicated that no resumes had been received at all on this position, and that he was recommending that Alex DeAngelis be re-appointed to the position for now. On a related topic, they received a number of CVs for the fire position and are setting up interviews.

The Vote for reappointing Alex as the qualified purchasing agent passed.

New Business

Security Cameras. Township Committeewoman Hudson was requesting a thorough and objective 3rd party review of the security cameras within the Municipal building, including audits of all of the hardware, their capabilities (audio, video, streaming, recording, etc.), who has access to the feeds, etc. There was discussion on the existing system, whether or not they are recording continuously, and identifying who had access. There was conversation about trusting internal employees vs. hiring an objective and neutral firm to perform the technology audit. There were questions whether this was or should be more of a police department concern. This was not voted on.

There were also concerns of who had township email addresses and if older accounts were ever deactivated. The Mayor will have a report run of all active email addresses in the Township.

Department Compliance Review/Audit. This was also requested by Committeewoman Hudson. The Mayor indicated this was slated to be discussed in the closed Executive meeting.

Unfinished Business

Live Streaming. At the prior meeting, live streaming of public Township Committee Meeting was discussed. As a start, the existing A/V equipment is being inspected and tuned. It was noted that audio in the main court room was very much improved. They are looking to making this happen.

Standing Committee Reports

Historic Committee. Had a good recent meeting with a long time resident talking about a number of historic structures and properties in the Township.

Other. A question came up about the Land Use Board meeting. Committeewoman Deal was in attendance and asked to leave as she constituted a quorum of the Township Committee when combined with the other two Committeemen who sit on the Land Use Board.

Open to the Public Second Comment Period

A resident came to speak extensively about what he perceives as unfairness and a lack of transparency from the Township, and mentioned legal action against the Township in which he was involved.

The Land Use Board Chairman spoke to the most recent Land Use Board meeting, he said Committeewoman Deal was asked to leave at the recommendation of the Board's counsel out of an abundance of caution.

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This content represents the author's view on the recent Township Committee Meeting, and should in no way be considered the official meeting minutes of the Township.