Montclair Council Reviews Community Development Grants, Rent Control, Neighborhood Flooding, Library Cutback Rumors – TAPinto.net
MONTCLAIR, NJ – The Montclair Township Council had its last meeting for 2020 on December 15, and, for a year-end meeting, it ran a wide gamut of issues – from rent control (again) to neighborhood flooding to library funding.
The remote meeting began, however, with Planning Director Janice Talley presenting the annual grant fund requests under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Available funding of grants for Essex County municipalities is expected to remain about the same as the previous year despite the pandemic. The grants being applied for in Montclair total $313,266. The township has requested two grants, a $70,000 grant for an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant restroom at the Valley Road firehouse and a $139,827 grant for an upgrade to Hartley Street.
Nine service agencies applied for the remaining grant money. Sue Seidenfeld of the COPE Center gave the first presentation, discussing how her group has been helping to provide counseling services to the poor and also working to help clients overcome addiction, a problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. She requested a $40,000 grant. Chris Murphy of Family Promise of Essex County, formerly the Interfaith Hospitality Network, stressed his group’s work at helping people find housing by providing emergency shelter and then providing assistance for more permanent housing, with counseling and children’s tutoring services also offered. Murphy asked for $32,500 for a program meant to implement longer-term services to help nine low-income families reach economic and housing stability.
Elaine Spears of the Montclair Neighborhood Development Corporation (MNDC) was next, talking about her organization’s work in helping with youth employment and a program offering opportunities for youth employment at the Brookdale ShopRite in Bloomfield, among other programs, including COVID-19 testing as well. She requested a grant of $19,966 for MNDC’s Project Oasis Youth Empowerment Program, which supports services to help teenagers from low-income families. The Montclair Shared Housing Association, which runs the Montclair Inn on Hillside Avenue, which provides housing for 22 low-income tenants, put in an $8,000 request for development of an outdoor space at the inn in its presentation, given by Joy Kay. The space is a patio used by residents for recreational use and it needs to be repaired.
Marvin Dunn and Victor Demming of Neighborhood Council, Inc. requested $86,000 for repairs to the roof and the air conditioning system in the organization’s building. The Neighborhood Council provides local services to residents. Evelyn Gay and Marcia Heard of the mentoring group Sister 2 Sister, which mentors and counsels young girls, requested $20,000 for various programs to supplement their mentoring program – namely, self-development workshops and a project designed to improve girls’ technological literacy. The grant, if approved, would cover 71 percent of the funding.
Cynthia Walker of Start Out Fresh Intervention Advocates (S.O.F.I.A.) requested $57,800 to help fund its services, which help victims of domestic abuse make the transition to a better life, while Jessica Mroz and Marcia Marley of Succeed 2gether asked for $20,000 to continue their mentoring programs for boys and girls, including its Summer Enrichment Program and Early Childhood Literacy Program. Strategic Mentoring, Inc. had put in a $25,000 request for a program that, according to a memo provided by Director Talley, aims to “create suitable living environments for low-income disadvantaged Montclair youths through social, educational and recreation activities.” The group did not make a presentation, however.
Director Talley told Mayor Sean Spiller and the council that each member was to allocate a total of twenty points to the proposals submitted, with the proposals receiving the highest priority being those with the most points. The responses are to be counted up and crafted into a resolution that prioritizes the projects for the council to vote on in January. A score sheet will be attached and submitted to the Department of Planning after a public hearing. Councilor-at-Large Robert Russo found the system to be cumbersome, and he lamented that federal government has cut back on community grant money in recent years.
In public comment, rent control inevitably came up again. Resident Louisa Hackett noted that a petition to put to a referendum the rent-control ordinance passed on April 7 but blocked by a lawsuit from the Montclair Property Owners Association (MPOA) from taking effect had 53 out of 136 signatures that were new, while the other 83 had been cured. When she asked for an explanation, Township Attorney Ira Karasick tried to provide an answer. He said that all of the timelines normally applied to adding and curing petition signatures had been extended by the court, sometimes exponentially. Karasick added that the township clerk has been examining signatures recently submitted to cure the first petition, with a jumble of petitions submitted online bearing numerous errors, omissions, and inconsistencies.
“Whoever submitted these petitions didn’t look at them before they submitted them,” he said. He expects the court to continue to be involved, while Mayor Sean Spiller said he understood that signatures can be added to cured petitions.
Ron Simoncini, representing the MPOA, called in to counter the council’s efforts to prevent a referendum. He said that the council should want the rent control issue to go to a vote if it feels that the voters really want it, and he said that online petitions had to be submitted because the MPOA was expected to submit everything available. Simoncini went as far to compare Mayor Spiller and the council to Donald Trump pushing the repeal of the state and local tax deduction without engaging with states that depend on it because the township will not entertain a vote on rent control or engage with the landlords who want the referendum.
Karasick and Township Manager Tim Stafford refused to respond to Simoncini, and Mayor Spiller noted the irony of the council being compared to Trump – who made a name for himself as a developer of high-end real-estate projects before entering politics – for pushing rent control in Montclair to keep rents affordable.
Ed Remsen, mayor of Montclair from 2004 to 2008, called in on the issue and struck a more moderate tone on the issue. He said that the rent-control ordinance was imperfect but still a good start in keeping Montclair affordable, and he added that rents have to be kept in check to preserve the township‘s ethnic and economic diversity. He also proposed that the ordinance be reviewed in two or three years rather than ten years to get a better look at its impact.
Burnside Street resident Carson Hall called in to complain about the constant flooding on his street, expressing hope that something could be done about it. Manager Stafford addressed the issue, explaining that the township engineer and a consulting engineer said that further action on the issue is impossible for the time being because they are still studying contaminants in the ground water and any effort to address the flooding could affect the contaminant study.
He added that the engineers could meet with residents but they would only reassert their position, and he suggested that Second Ward Councilor Robin Schlager, whose ward includes Burnside Street, could set up such a meeting. Another Burnside Street resident, who did not give her name, said that the residents’ concerns are being pushed aside and that they have never been given any reasons for why – and that groundwater has never been discussed. She added that there were things the township could do to handle the flooding, like dealing with the height of a nearby retaining wall or dealing with the backflow valve. She said that connecting the flooding and groundwater issues is a way of the council dodging the concerns of Burnside Street residents
“Really nice quality of life we have here,” she sarcastically added.
Deputy Mayor / First Ward Councilor William Hurlock and Fourth Ward Councilor David Cummings also sought to ease the concerns of resident Edward Robbins, who feared cuts to the Montclair Library due to the pandemic, including the rumored closure of the Bellevue Avenue branch. Councilor Cummings said that the council was fully committed to keeping the library system well-funded, and Deputy Mayor Hurlock dismissed the idea that the Bellevue Avenue branch would soon close. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
The council passed numerous resolutions that included the cancellation of unspent funds for the parking utility, the water utility, and several other public expenditures, and it passed on first reading an ordinance waiving fees for outdoor tents and heating of said tents for business purposed to help retailers – but especially restaurants – during the pandemic. Manger Stafford explained that the state has recommended that such waivers in emergency situations need to be codified by ordinance, which led to the drafting of this measure.
At the end of a long meeting, Mayor Spiller expressed hope that efforts to turn the COVID crisis around, particular with regard to vaccines, would lead to better times ahead, and he urged Montclair residents to be patient as the township and the nation can expect mitigation measures required by the pandemic to continue into 2021 before the COVID virus is finally brought under control. He wished everyone on the council and in town a happy new year.