Kinnelon Council Shakes Up Committee Chairs

Sometimes, all it takes for a council to reach a resolution is for them to step off the dais, sit around a large conference table and talk about their feelings.

At least that did the trick for the after one member motioned to table the appointments of council committee chairmen at the Jan. 2.

At the Jan. 2 meeting, Councilman Ron Mondello asked that the council table the appointments because he said he was only given a few minutes to review the chairmanships, which were to be appointed by the mayor with the council's consent, before being asked to vote on them at the meeting. Mayor Bob Collins did not take the motion lightly.

"I think it's wrong," he said. "I think it's an afront to me, personally, as mayor."

The council revisited the topic during its work session meeting Thursday and, after lengthy debate, came to a consensus that all council members seemed to agree on.

The issue seemed to revolve upon the mayor's selection of Mondello as chairman of the Ordinance Committee and inclusion of Councilman Gary Moleta on the council's Finance Committee. Mondello, who was recently , said with his new role and professional demands, he simply does not have the time needed to serve in the capacity well.

"By putting me on [the Ordinance Committee] at this point in time, I really feel that that might be a disservice to the borough," he said. "For somebody to do that type of job properly, they need to have a lot of time on their hands. Somebody needs to go from 'A' down to 'Z' and look at those ordinances."

Mondello also apologized for the way the issue came about during the reorganization meeting and for hurting the mayor's feelings. He stressed that the issue was one that divided the council and that they should work together to unite again.

"We are a divided house that needs to get united or I think it's going to become further and further and further divided," he said.

Instead of serving on the Ordinance Committee, Mondello, who has education and experience in the field of finance, preferred to be on the Finance Committee. Councilmen Stephen Cobell and James Freda agreed that he would be a good fit for the committee and said Moleta may not have the same experience with finance as Mondello.

But the mayor and Moleta both expressed dissatisfaction over last year's budget and Collins said this was his rationale for reorganizing the Finance Committee.

"We didn't hit the marks that I wanted us to achieve last year," he said.

Collins said he felt the committee could have been more "creative" with the budget to lower the rate. But Cobell, who was chairman of the Finance Committee during last year's budget process, said the borough's ratables shrank and that the committee did what they could to keep the rate low. He also said financial control was not well-monitored last year and that the committee has been working to correct that this year and deliver a budget to the council more than a month before it is due to the county.

Moleta said he felt that there was a lack of communication between the Finance Committee and the rest of the council last year and that he had "glaring" concerns over last year's budget, although he did not speak specifically about what those concerns were. Moleta, who is retired, said he liked the recommendation that he be on the Finance Commitee. Collins also said since Moleta has been volunteering to assist with the borough's Information Technology (IT) issues, he would be a good fit for the committee, as he spends a lot of time working with the borough. He noted that he did not randomly choose who he believed would be the best for each committee.

"I didn't intend to do this haphazardly. I didn't throw it to the wall and hope that it stuck," he said.

Ultimately, Freda offered to relinquish his seat on the Finance Committee for Mondello and instead, serve as chairman of the Ordinance Committee with Council President Dan O'Dougherty's assistance.

Freda said he agreed with Moleta that the council should communicate better.

"I think he is correct in the sense that we need to communicate better," he said. "When any councilman asks to communicate, I think we should table it. This was a discussion and we worked it out."