Mayor Hern, New Budget Scrutinized at Council Meeting

Monday night's New Providence Council meeting that was supposed to provide a routine peek at the proposed $16.8 municipal budget and a clerical review of the long-awaited liquor-license plan. But that all changed when a pair of residents discussed a "they-said-he-said" dispute involving Mayor J. Brooke Hern.

Hern's personal life was questioned in an email blast from an activist group called New Providence Concerned Citizens. The email encouraged residents to attend Monday's council meeting. Hern disputed the claims in his own email, defending himself and providing detailed personal information dealing with his financial struggles, his divorce from his wife, Stephanie, and issues with their children.

Marla Carleen, a New Providence resident, cited Hern’s email as her reason for discussing issues related to his former New Providence home at the council meeting.

“I’d like to ask you a question about a statement you made in a publicly distributed email, which from other public documents, doesn’t seem to be correct. This is a public forum, it’s a public question, and it’s a public issue. You yourself distributed this email widely. You mention the fact in here that you were mayor a minimum of four times so I think that what you communicated to the public is open for public discussion,” Carleen said.

“So I would like to ask a question about one particular statement that you made, which is not supported by another public document. You made a statement in there, unfortunately, publically, that you had given your ex-wife the house and she has not made any mortgage payments, and she has complete control over that house and complete responsibility. There is a bankruptcy filing that you filed, and that was approved, in which you were the only debtor listed on the house and that the house had a value of $429,760 but a mortgage of $514,152 of which was released in bankruptcy. So I just want to understand the truthfulness of this statement that you gave an asset that was released in bankruptcy.”

Hern responded by saying he would not argue about issues related to his divorce.

“This is not the right forum for that,” Hern said. “That is not a question that has anything whatsoever to do with policies of council. And moreover, this is public comment. You made your comment. Do you have anything else?”

Carleen said she did, citing the Sunshine Law in the Open Public Meetings Act.

“The definition of ‘public business’ means and includes all matters which relate in any way, directly or indirectly, to the performance of the public body’s functions or the conduct of its business,” Carleen explained. “You sent out this email to I don’t even know how many people in town. You brought up what effect your divorce may or may not have had on your mayoral duties. You opened the door to public discussion and it is certainly something that should be able to be discussed because you opened the door to it.”

Hern responded by saying, “Do you feel you have not had the opportunity to comment here?”

Carleen said, “I would like an answer to the question.”

Hern said he had given Carleen "as much of an answer as I cared to."

“Which is no answer,” she replied. “You’re not going to publicly discuss your divorce, but you would in emails? Thank you.”

Then local resident Edward Cadmus approached the microphone and said:

“I’m a third-generation, lifelong resident of New Providence. Based on the letter you sent to me and others, of all the things you felt you had to say, I find you as an embarrassment to me, to this town and to the state and most of all to your children and I’m asking you tonight to resign the office of Mayor of New Providence.”

Cadmus’ comment received applause some of the nearly 40 residents in attendance.

Council members did not say anything in response to comments made by Cadmus and Carleen during the public comments portion of the meeting.

After the meeting, Hern discussed the evening's events with Patch.

“I thought it went fine," he said. "What I noticed was that two people got up and when Al Morgan’s former campaign manager, who campaigned again me, demanded that I resign… Ed Cadmus. He managed Al Morgan’s campaign against me and lost by 50 votes in the primary. Surprisingly, he doesn’t want me to be mayor,” Hern said. “So when he demanded that I resign, I heard about five or six people applaud. Let me tell you I’ve been getting emails back from people from that email I sent, just supporting me, telling me there was no need for me to even write a response, let alone a response that long, and they’re very sorry that I had to and felt that I needed to.”

Hern also noted the council is a cohesive, effective body and whatever political differences they had at one time or another, they have come together to work items, such as the Municipal Budget and proposed Liquor License Ordinance.

“There is cohesion behind one purpose and that is to get things done for New Providence. I’ve been on council since 2004 and we’ve had some great people serving and I have to tell you, it’s a good group. It’s a team,” Hern said. “You look at an old Yankees team from the 70s and you see that combination of people, the different talents coming together, the strengths and that’s the way this council is. Everyone just brings something to the table. It’s awesome.”

Stephanie Hern declined to comment for this story.

In other council business, Council President Michael Gennaro made an informal presentation of the proposed 2012 Municipal Budget.

Gennaro said within the $16.8 million proposed budget, the borough is facing an additional tax of $82,000 from 2011, the result of a 1.26 percent increase for total appropriations, less than the state-mandated 2 percent budget cap for municipalities. The budget plan would cost $60 in taxes to a resident whose home is assessed at $282,000.  

“Just to clarify, the taxes you get come from three components — the municipal component, the county component and the board of education component," Gennaro said. "The municipal component is 22 percent of the total tax bill that you get and that’s all we’re talking about here tonight, the 22 percent portion."

Gennaro said there are key drivers for the 2012 budget in terms of reductions, which include: the reduction of a full-time staff position through attrition for a savings of $60,000; reduction of one full-time position with the through attrition for a savings of $96,000; an extension on the agreement with Union County Resource Recovery Facility with the borough’s garbage disposal, saving the borough $25,000; a reduction in the borough’s pension allotment, for a savings of $101,000; and a 28 percent reduction in the borough’s electricity bill, for a savings of $53,000.

Gennaro said the borough auctioned off the borough’s electricity purchases to an agency that does a reverse auction on the Internet.

As a result of that auction, the borough will have that savings for two years, which will be realized in the 2013 budget, said Borough Administrator Doug Marvin.

“I’m happy to report that after going through three or four very difficult budget years, where state aid was reducing, pensions were increasing, all sorts of costs were hitting us at the same time… I can remember years where I was sitting here at this same point in time and we were staring at a 12 percent increase on paper and those were the years we had to lay off staff, had to reduce services in town to get it back under 4 percent,” Gennaro said.

Councilman Jim Cucco also noted that borough employees are now contributing to their health benefits, which will be a savings for the borough.

“We had, in our negotiations, been stressing to our employees for some time that we needed to be partners in the whole healthcare system. Employees here have a very good health plan, very good compared to what most of us have in the private sector, and without them experiencing some of the pain of the annual increases with that, I don’t think they really appreciated what it was doing to the borough to continue to fund that,” Gennaro said. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not sure which yet, anytime we brought this subject up, the state had it’s own solution to this problem. First, they required people to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries, which was far less than what we were asking for, and then they passed a phase-in program where people would actually contribute a percentage of the premium as opposed to a percentage of the salaries, which is a much better idea because now they have to feel some of the pain of these increases. So I think that overall number the employees will be contributing this year is $78,000 or so.”

Councilman Bob Robinson questioned why the tax levy couldn’t be at zero percent this year.

Gennaro said if the tax levy was placed at zero percent, it would hurt the borough in the years ahead. 

“In any budget year, it’s probably possible, through deferring expenses or other types of gimmicks, to have a zero percent or even a negative [tax increase] and we have resisted that temptation in the past and the reason we resisted it is because every time you do that, you’re setting yourself up for pain in the next year or the following year because sooner or later, those deferrals will come back and they have to be incurred and when they get incurred, you don’t want to do it in a way that closes you to exceed your 2 percent cap,” Gennaro explained. “So the approach we have taken is we do reasonable, but fairly consistent increases over time so that the tax payers have a real rational idea of what they’re in for. We’re not pulling the wool over anybody’s eyes; we’re not pretending that we can keep the lid on property taxes at zero forever because you just can’t. It’s not realistic. So we’d rather be up front with everybody with a minimum increase each year and avoid that pain of catching up with those deferrals in future years.”

Gennaro said there will be a formal introductory presentation of the 2012 Municipal Budget at the Feb. 27 council meeting.

Council also reviewed the proposed Liquor Consumption License Ordinance for a third time and council members made minor changes to the draft.

Borough Attorney Carl Woodward said he intends to send the draft ordinance to the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control for their review. Woodward said he expects to hear back from the ABC within the next month.