It took an ill Councilman Jon Crowley to be on line at the December meeting of the Atlantic Highlands Council in order to have a quorum, in spite of it being one of the five months during the year Council had scheduled only one monthly meeting.
Mayor Lori Hohenleitner and Council members Eileen Cusick and Vito Colosurdo, both of whom did not seek re-election and whose terms end this month, were the only elected officials present for the meeting at borough hall, with Crowley creating the four-member quorum appearing for a portion of the meeting on line. The recording does not indicate when Crowley left the meeting after giving his monthly report.
Adding to the problem was the, once again, inconsistency of the audio system for the ZOOM input from both Crowley and borough attorney Peg Schaefer, also appearing virtually for the regularly scheduled meeting.
Members present in the council chamber took several minutes at the beginning of the meeting trying to make the audio effective; however, it was still difficult to hear Schaefer’s report completely, and Hohenleitner stopped Crowley’s report at one point explaining he was ‘frozen’ or cutting out.
The council’s adoption of meeting dates at the reorganization meeting 12 months ago set five months when meetings would be the first and third Mondays of the month, two when they would be Wednesdays, and five when there would only be one meeting.
Hohenleitner expressed thanks to all borough employees, especially the Police Chief, Borough Clerk and Public Works Director for their unanticipated extremely heavy workload in the sudden departure of borough administrator Robert Ferragina. She noted that in addition to all the professionals making up for the absence of an administrator without sufficient planning, she, too, spent more time at borough hall assisting.
Ferragina, who had been appointed to the position four years ago when Loretta Gluckstein was mayor, gave two weeks’ notice he was leaving Atlantic Highlands effective the end of the year, and was not present at the meeting.
The mayor said his resignation comes at a good time of the year since the borough had received many applications for the position. She explained the series of meetings and discussions both by committees , other officials and the entire council are having before a new administrator is named to the post, hopefully by the end of January. The mayor said communications between the administrator and members of the public, council, and all employees and committees are of utmost importance in making a new selection.
In response to a question from a resident, the mayor said legal advertising would continue in local newspapers until March at the least. Borough Clerk Michelle Clark noted the borough, in keeping with the new state law that ends legal advertising in newspapers by March, said the borough will most likely begin advertising all their legals on the borough website next month in addition to continuing in the newspapers until that time.
The mayor, in response to another question, said she has not been able to learn where or how the non-profit organization formed by one newspaper in which the borough places legals uses its funds, since its status has not been in effect a full year and the firm has not filed the paperwork to see the information.
In other business, council approved resolutions renewing membership in Monmouth Municipal JIF, adjusting water and sewer utility bills, renewed the agreement with Highlands for a part time ambulance service, renewed its agreement for Public Health Services, appointed Michael Cassidy to the sanitation department, authorized $40,000 for a Professional Service Contract with Colliers for the water system, and approved payment of more than $2.1 million in bills for the month
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