MONTCLAIR, NJ - The Montclair Township Council spent its last meeting of 2022 on December 20 with an endless myriad of issues to consider, the most notable one being, as always, the redevelopment plan for the Lackawanna Plaza property.

The council once again faced an ordinance to approve the Lackawanna Plaza redevelopment plan. Though it had been passed on first reading on December 6, it was up for a renewed first reading. Planning Director Janice Talley explained that another first-reading vote would allow her to provide a link to residents for the corrected version of the plan, and it would also give the board a February 4 deadline to complete its evaluation to determine if it is consistent with the master plan. It would include the 14 days since the tabling of the ordinance at the previous meeting with 46 fays to go for a total of 60 days. As February 4, 2023 falls on a Saturday, the Planning Board’s evaluation of the plan is likely to be completed before then.

Councilor-at-Large Robert Russo was confused by the timetable, which he blamed on bad math with regard to the number of days. But Fourth Ward Councilor David Cummings, who has been at the forefront of the Lackawanna Plaza issue and has held three community meetings on the issue since early November, was troubled that a traffic study could not be done by the end of the 60-day period. Director Talley, who had been faced with the possibility of an independent traffic study taking up to twelve weeks, has not been able to guarantee a finished traffic study before February 4 at the time this ordinance was drafted. Councilor Cummings blasted the process for not being done thoroughly.

SIGNUPSCRIPT

Third Ward Councilor Lori Price Abrams offered Director Talley a fig leaf, asking if the council could, after receiving feedback from the Planning Board, go back to the board for input on the traffic study should the council receive the traffic study belatedly. Director Talley said that such a thing was possible, adding that aa traffic study was unnecessary given the expertise from the board’s traffic and parking consultants but adding that an independent study was still good to have. This failed to satisfy Councilor Cummings, who, along with Councilor Russo and Deputy Mayor / First Ward Councilor William Hurlock, voted against approval on first reading, but it still passed 4-3.

Then, late in the evening, without warning (it was not on the online version of agenda), a resolution authorizing a traffic study came up for a vote. Director Talley had originally recommended Boswell Engineering to do the study, but she changed her mind when it turned out that it had done a good deal of work with Montclair before, and she was prepared to recommend CME for the job. But she changed her mind yet again, choosing Brightview Engineering of Livingston, and Councilor-at-Large Peter Yacobellis sponsored an amendment changing the contract from CME to Brightview.

Councilor Cummings was exasperated with the process, demanding to know why Director Talley seemed to be changing her recommendation in a rapid-fire fashion. She explained that the township had a contract with Boswell and sought to work with CME, which has had business with the township (in 2017), instead. But CME would be unable to complete the study until March 14, so Director Talley moved to Brightview. Councilor Cummings was still disappointed in the process, saying that it did not need to be rushed. Once the traffic study resolution was amended to award the study to Brightview, however, it passed 5-2, with Councilors Cummings and Russo dissenting. **BULLSEYE

Earlier, in public comment, several residents expressed concern about the project. Former Fourth Ward Councilor Renée Baskerville was afraid of flooding issues resulting from sinkholes that have occurred on Glenridge Avenue given its proximity to Toney’s Brook underneath, while Historic Preservation Commission member David Greenbaum said that developer Dave Placek’s design was ambitious and needed help from Montclair residents to improve – help that Greenbaum said he would be happy to give. But former Planning Board member Martin Schwartz was anything but happy, decrying the process as having been conceived behind the scenes with Placek and leaving various boards and residents having to vet the plan when it should have been vetted earlier in a transparent fashion. Schwartz said that Placek was well-intentioned but his plan was inconsistent with the master plan and relied too heavily on buildings with too much bulk and not enough open space.

The meeting actually began with a hearing on Comcast services for the township. Rob Clifton, a senior Comcast director for government affairs, explained that, with the cable company’s franchise for services to Montclair nearly up for renewal, its honor of the federally mandated process to renew the deal was almost complete. The application for renewal was field in June 2022, with a certificate of approval anticipated this coming March. Comcast is expected to comply with four basic tenets – compliance with franchise terms, reasonable service, a record of financial, legal, and technical ability, and the resources to meet the township’s future needs. A draft of the ordinance is expected before the council in January.

Mayor Sean Spiller expressed his hope that Comcast would strive to provide equitable and accessible service, and he hoped Comcast would provide more educational programming. One member of the public, Kenneth Berman, asked about the renewal. He specifically inquired what Comcast has been doing to improve service. Clifton said that Comcast has been updating its equipment every year and has been enhancing its ability to send outs crew to repair outages until the firm is in a position to do a complete rebuild of its services. Councilor Russo said that his household had problems, though, receiving the ten o’clock newscast on WPIX-TV (Channel 11), which he said his wife watches. **STANDARD

Several residents had complained about the difficulty of obtaining records through the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), largely due to backlogs in the clerk’s office. Mayor Spiller moved to post a new position of administrative clerk to help Township Clerk Angelese Bermudez Nieves process OPRA requests. Councilor Russo wanted to know why such a title, which involves greater pay, was being used for the position. Bermudez Nieves explained that the duties of the position are more expansive compared to a principal clerk, and that was what the township needed to better serve the residents. She has one administrative assistant, but she said that she needed another. The measure passed 5-2. As with the traffic study resolution, Councilors Russo and Cummings were the only dissenters.

During the votes on resolutions, the council faced a vote on whether or not to confirm and ratify an open professional services contract and the O'Toole Scrivo law firm in Cedar Grove and authorize a $39,386 payment for an independent employment practices investigation in connection with the 2021 firefighter-promotion test, which resident Lauren Berman urged the council to reject, given the involvement between Kevin O’Toole and Fire Chief John Herrmann in a local fraternal organization and their associations with suspended Township Manager Tim Stafford, also a Cedar Grove resident. With only Mayor Spiller and Councilor Price Abrams voting yes, the measure field by a tie vote of 2-2-3, with Councilors Cummings and Yacobellis voting no and Councilors Hurlock, Robin Schlager (Ward 2) and Russo abstaining.