Mount, Bostock Say Farewell at Final Council Meeting

The Lawrence Township Council meeting held last Thursday, Dec. 22, was the final such meeting for Councilwoman Pam Mount and Councilman Bob Bostock, as well as Township Attorney Michael W. Herbert.

Mount, who has served on council for the last 12 years and served as mayor in 2001, 2005 and 2009, in order to “focus her energies” on working with local, county and state organizations to promote sustainability and to spend more time with her family.

Bostock similarly due to “pressing professional obligations.” Elected to council in the November 2007 election, he was the only Republican on the five-person council during the last two years.

When council holds its 2012 reorganization meeting at noon on Sunday, Jan. 1, and , the council will be entirely Democratic. 

Herbert, after Kevin Nerwinski became the  township’s new municipal judge, informed council he is giving up his job in Lawrence Township to take over the township attorney responsibilities in West Windsor, as a result of the death earlier this year of his father, attorney .

“I just want to thank everyone. Lawrence has been the easiest and most pleasant town I’ve ever represented,” Herbert said during the meeting. “You have a wonderful, wonderful manager and I want to thank council, especially the mayor, for making my time here….it left me with a very good feeling. I just want to thank the township and wish you all well in the new year. You’ve got a great town here and it’s very well run.”

Mount, Bostock and Powers were each presented by Mayor Greg Puliti with a plaque recognizing their service to the town during the last four years. Councilman Jim Kownacki, meanwhile, presented Puliti with his own plaque thanking him for serving as mayor during 2011.

“It’s been a pleasure to serve the residents of Lawrence Township,” Mount said during the meeting. “One of the fringe benefits of being on town council that people don’t really think about necessarily is that you get to meet all kinds of people in town and in the region that perhaps in no other way would you have access to those kinds of friendships and connections. And that has been a wonderful experience for me and working then with all those folks trying to enable the kinds of things they’d like to get done has been both a challenge and a pleasure.

“So I would certainly like to extend my appreciation to the administration and the staff for running a great town and being able to work all my crazy ideas through and see if we can get some stuff done,” she said. “I think overall we really accomplished a lot in those 12 years and we have an incredibly livable and sustainable town that we can all be very proud of. To all my fellow council people and all the volunteers that have come through our committees over the years and made great contributions, I want to thank you very much. I wish everyone well in the new year.”

Mount was also presented by Powers with a framed photo of her and other members of Lawrence Township’s delegation to the 2011 League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City, during which .

“Councilwoman Mount, I know something near and dear to your heart is sustainability,” Powers said as he gave her the photo.

Puliti echoed Powers’ words, telling Mount, “I’d just like to say, on behalf of the council and the citizens, your open space and sustainability efforts for Lawrence Township will long, long be remembered. You just put Lawrence Township on that path and we can just say you did it.”

“I also want to express my thanks to Councilman Bostock for his four years of service,” Powers said. “I know for the last two years he’s been outnumbered 4-to-1. But I think Councilman Bostock truly demonstrated how a councilman despite being in the minority could be an effective leader in getting his agenda through. I think, for the Dyson tract and other initiatives that you accomplished during your four years, my hat’s off to you.”

Bostock took a moment to offer his own words of thanks, saying:

“There is no greater honor for a citizen of a republic such as ours than to be chosen by his fellow citizens to represent them in the councils of government. And I will always be grateful to my fellow citizens here in Lawrence Township for giving me the opportunity to serve on this council. Public service is a sacred trust. We are all mindful of that. I have tried to conduct myself in all things being mindful of that trust.

“I have spent most of my professional career in government working for elected public officials, all of whom have had far larger constituencies than me – former President Richard Nixon, Congressman Dean Gallo and Gov. Christie Whitman. And I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from them what it takes and what it means to be a public servant in the truest since. And to the extent that I have made any contribution at all while on council I owe much to the example that they set for me during my tenure working for each of those outstanding public servants.

“I want to particularly thank our manager, Richard Krawczun, who has and continues to do an outstanding job as town manager. We are very fortunate to have him at the helm running our local government and he really does an outstanding job and I can say without fear of contradiction that he is one of the outstanding township managers in the state of New Jersey. I also want to thank our excellent clerk, Kathleen Norcia, who has been just a delight and a pleasure to work with. She is a true professional in every sense of the word and really does a fabulous job running the clerk’s office and keeping us all on task and making sure we get all the information we need to be able to make the decisions that we’re called on to make from time to time.

“I also want to thank all my council colleagues, both those who are here and those who have served during the course of my tenure here. If there’s one thing I’m convinced of it’s that everybody on this council acts in what they consider to be the best interest of our township, and I appreciate more than ever, having occupied this position for a relatively short period of time, how much time and effort they all put in to the work they do. And I think the entire community owes each of them a great debt of gratitude.

“When my wife and I moved up here from Virginia in 1995, we chose Lawrence Township because we thought this would be a great place to live and raise our family. It has met and exceeded our expectations in every way, shape and form. I hope that I have been able to help make it, maybe, perhaps a little bit of a better place to live and raise a family by my service here….

“I have thought of my service here as something that, really, each of us owes to our communities. We need to give something back. We need to be part of a cause greater than ourselves. And there are so many people in this community who rise to that challenge in so many ways – volunteer organizations, the entire township professional staff, our police, our fire, our first aid, everyone here in town hall who really give a great deal to make this government run well, and all of those volunteers and countless organizations that do so much to make this community of which I think we can all be very proud.”

for details of the business that was conducted at the Dec. 22 council meeting.

See Also:

" (Lawrenceville Patch)

"Pam Mount Looks Back at Years of Service" (Lawrence Ledger)

"Bostock Looks Back at Time on Council" (Lawrence Ledger)

 "After 12 Years of Service to Lawrence, Pam Mount Looks Forward" (Times of Trenton)