Board Appointments Lead to Term Limits Debate Among Freeholders

The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders appointed members to county boards during Thursday’s regular meeting in Freehold.

On the Mental Health Board, Helene Kalkay, of Holmdel, and Sally Pari, of Morganville, were reappointed to three-year terms; David Stout, of Wall, was reappointed to a one-year term; and Ian Nussbaum, of Little Silver, was appointed to a two-year term.

On the Board of Health, June Counterman, of Roosevelt, and Judy Thorpe, of Freehold, were reappointed to three-year terms.

Freeholder Amy Mallet, who has advocated term limits for county boards, voted against Counterman’s reappointment.

“My concern is the consecutive numbers of years served, and in this situation it’s since 1978. Someone can serve for as long as 10, 12 years, but after that I’d like to see more rotation,” Mallet said.

She noted that her vote was not a reflection of Counterman’s work, which she characterized as excellent, but was merely consistent with her position on term limits.

Freehold Lillian Burry said the county’s Board of Health was in dire need of members and has difficulty reaching a quorum to hold meetings. The board currently has a vacancy for a term that ended June 30.

“Here we’re proposing to take a very dedicated, hardworking member and saying ‘Thank you for your service. We’re going to give you the golden handshake, but we don’t need your services anymore.’ And now we’re down another person on the Board of Health. It just defies logic,” Burry said.

All other appointments were approved unanimously.

Notes From the Freeholders' Meeting

• The governing body authorized a right of entry agreement with Wall Township near an area of Wreck Pond west of Route 71. The county requires access as part of a sediment control project at the pond.

According to Monmouth County Engineer Joseph Ettore, the low water depth on the south side of Wreck Pond near an underused parking lot provides ideal access to a section of the pond where sediment has built up. The deposit is in the center of the pond and has split the water channel, he noted.

“We’re doing this as part of a pilot program with the DEP,” Ettore said. “We’re going to be using a backhoe which will carry itself out on stone, remove the silt that has developed inside the pond and then work that material out and remove the stone.”

The county Department of Public Works will begin work on the project in early September and continue through the winter, according to Ettore.

• The freeholders approved modifications to a federal aid agreement with the New Jersey Department of Transportation for the design of the reconstruction of the West Front Street bridge.

“The item on the agenda is a no-cost time extension to an existing contract,” Ettore said.

The resolution will extend the contract until October 2012, at which time the county expects to put the project out to bid for construction. An S-shaped bridge will be built alongside the current structure to minimize the time the access will be closed, according to Ettore.

Middletown resident Bill Thorpe criticized the design of the bridge the county is pursuing.

“The bridge needs to be replaced for safety reasons, but the kind of money the federal government and the state government and the county government is going to spend will accomplish zero other than safety. It won’t do a thing for the traffic problem,” Thorpe said.

• The Board of Chosen Freeholders authorized an agreement with Eatontown, allowing the county to take over jurisdiction of Industrial Way East from Wall Street to Route 35.

The county will be responsible for the maintenance of that section of the roadway. Ettore said the county accepts municipalities’ requests to take over a section of local roadway in exchange for the town accepting jurisdiction for a comparable section of county road.

Eatontown has agreed to maintain a section of Wall Street, a county road, between Parker Road and Industrial Way East.