Township Meeting March 27, 2023
At the March 13, 2023 meeting, Township Clerk Maryalice Brown announced that the township architect and engineer will present plans for the proposed municipal complex March 27, 2023. This meeting will be in person, at 6:30 PM, at the fire house on Hawkin Road. Presumably, they will be there to answer questions.
No details were discussed about how this presentation would proceed. Because it will be the first time that these professionals publicly discuss plans, my husband and I thought it would be useful for the committee to organize the presentation in a way that allows residents to participate in a full and meaningful way.
My husband and I sent the following email to the township as a way to open dialogue on this very important and very expensive public project.
March 16, 2023 Email
Dear Mayor Moore, committee members, staff and professionals,
We are writing to ask how the upcoming presentation of the new municipal complex at the March 27 township meeting will be handled.
In order for people to offer the most thoughtful comments, it would be helpful for them to be able to review the plans before the meeting. The township already observes this commonsense principle. It distributes in advance meeting packets to committee members, it already distributed these development plans to you in advance of the meeting. Also, plans and documents are routinely available in advance of Land Development Board hearings.
That same principle applies here. Without the opportunity for review before the presentation, residents can only give quick off-the-cuff thoughts. A project this important and this expensive warrants more than that. We ask that the plans and a written summary of the project be posted online and at the municipal building so that people can review them a week before the meeting.
We also suggest that your professionals make an initial presentation at the meeting and allow public comments afterwards. That will allow people to follow up on issues and develop them more fully over the course of the meeting. This will benefit everyone including yourselves and the professionals.
We also suggest that a longer public comment period be provided. The two-minute comment period for committee meetings is too short to reach a deeper understanding of the complex issues surrounding such a large public project.
At other major township hearings, like the dissolution of the fire commission, a longer period was allowed. Again, the importance and expense of this project deserves more than a two-minute public comment.
It would also be helpful to residents to livestream the meeting so that people who cannot attend a 6:30 PM meeting can watch it. It would be valuable to video record it and put it on the township website, as was done for the December 19, 2022 town hall presentation meeting.
Last, we also suggest that information about this presentation is posted in a timely fashion on the “Town Hall” page along with an explanation of how it will be handled so that residents can participate accordingly.
Thank you for your attention to this.
Sincerely,
Stuart and Fran Brooks
