Toms River Council Changes Meeting Time, Tightens Public Comment Rules

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Township Council will hold its meetings at 4 p.m. in 2025 under a resolution approved during the council's reorganization meeting on Tuesday.

The reorganization meeting started with Justin Lamb being voted council president and Craig Coleman, who served as council president in 2024, voted council vice president.

The resolution to change the meeting time — Toms River held its council meetings at 7 p.m. in 2024 — was one of several approved as the council voted on resolutions setting meeting dates and rules for the year.

The council also approved changes in how and when public comment will be accepted during the meetings. Speakers are now limited to 3 minutes and will not be permitted to return to the microphone, and general public comment will be limited to 60 minutes during the meeting. Public comment on second reading of ordinances will be 30 minutes total.

On the consent agenda, residents would be permitted to ask for resolutions to be pulled for a separate discussion but would not be permitted to ask questions about them. Lamb said councils in the past that allowed residents to ask questions and comment on resolutions were conducting the meetings wrong.

In addition, Lamb said anyone who makes derogatory remarks or personal attacks will be forced to stop speaking, and people speaking out from the audience would be removed from the meeting.

Council and administration statements were moved to after the general public comment session, with the meetings closing after town officials' comments.

The changes were not well-received by residents in attendance or by members of the council.

Councilmen Tom Nivison, Jim Quinlisk and David Ciccozzi all criticized the time change, with Nivison and Quinlisk saying the move to 4 p.m. creates difficulties for people who work in trying to attend the council meetings.

Councilwoman Lynne O'Toole said the move to 4 p.m. would make it easier for seniors who don't like to drive in the dark to attend the meetings.

Mayor Daniel Rodrick said the time change was needed to allow department heads and division heads to attend the council meetings without incurring large amounts of overtime or comp time because a meeting is running until late in the evening.

Rodrick pointed out that he had been the person who wanted the meetings moved to 7 p.m. from the 6 p.m. time they had been held for years to accommodate more people, but said that change was a mistake.

He said he and business administrator Jonathan Salonis had reviewed the 2024 meeting videos and found it was "the same 12 or 13 people" speaking at every meeting and repeating the same complaints and dragging out the meetings.

Resident Robert Tormollan, a Rodrick critic, said the move to 4 p.m. was "very unfair to the public."

"It just shows the concern you have about hearing from the public," he said.

Irene Watson, who has supported many of the changes made by Rodrick over the last year, also opposed the 4 p.m. time change. Watson said keeping the meetings at 6 or 7 p.m. brings "a good selection of people who can come to the meetings with different ideas," and said the different ideas from various groups of people were good for the town.

Paul Williams, another Rodrick critic, said the changes were meant to silence the public, calling them overburdensome and saying restrictions on the content of a speaker's comments are a violation of the First Amendment.

Resident Dennis Galante made the same criticism after Lamb shut down comments by Michael Cohen, a Toms River resident who spoke before Galante and criticized a number of actions by Rodrick in 2024.

"It's viewpoint discrimination," Galante said, which Lamb rejected.

There is extensive case law from the U.S. Supreme Court addressing restrictions on the content of public speech, particularly restrictions by governing bodies.

Hear the rules for public comment as read by Lamb during the meeting: