At Friendly Borough Reorganization Meeting, Unanimous Appointments Made

Two new members were sworn in to the borough council and an existing councilman was appointed to be council president during a borough reorganization meeting full of handshakes and congeniality.

Len Resto and John Holman were sworn in to the council at the meeting's beginning by Clerk Susan Caljean. They quickly took their seats as the crowd—made up of borough committee members, fire officials, policemen and state politicians—loudly applauded.

Borough firemen eventually came to the front to be sworn in as well. State Senator Joseph Pennacchio was on hand to witness the action, and former State Senator Leanna Brown, a borough resident, was also in attendance.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Freylinghuysen, R-N.J., came into the meeting after it had ended to congratulate the new borough government.

Council members voted unanimously on which of their colleagues should be on the planning board and which should be borough president.

Councilman James Collander nominated fellow Councilman Bruce Harris to be the council's liaison to planning board. The rest of the council approved the appointment.

Collander was then enthusiastically nominated by the council to be council president. The nomination was quickly approved.

Mayor Nelson Vaughan had a special gift for Collander at the meeting—a nameplate bearing his name and the title "council president." Vaughan had arranged for it to be made even though, beforehad, he did not know for sure whether Collander would be approved as the new president.

"Every now and then a mayor takes a risk, and I had a feeling Councilman Collander would be elected council president," Vaughan said. "I hoped he would be elected council president."

Vaughan is now the only Democrat on council.

As is tradition as reorganization meetings, Vaughan gave a State of the Borough address. In it, he listed a number of projects the borough would attempt to tackle throughout the year.

Among them: creating a Main Street Business Improvement District intended to help downtown businesses, establishing a concierge services for the train station, expanding its curb and sidewalk program and upgrading the firehouse.

He said the borough also intends to create new recreational spaces for residents—it will look to open a community garden and establish a dog park.

Vaughan gave credit to borough employees that have worked hard to ensure the borough has continued to run smoothly throughout a difficult 2009.

"This hard work ... has enabled the borough to come through this gloomy, gloomy economy better than almost all New Jersey municipalities," Vaughan said.

He noted, though, that it would be difficult to hold down taxes in 2010, though the borough has received some federal stimulus money for some of its projects.

All of Vaughn's mayoral appointments to various committees were quickly approved by the council in a meeting that lasted less than one hour. The borough also adopted a temporary 2010 budget, something it must do by law in order to spend any money in 2010. The numbers will drastically change before a final budget is adopted in March.

On Wednesday, the Planning Board will meet at 7:30pm to reorganize.