JACKSON – New members of the land use boards were appointed during a recent Township Council meeting.
The appointees named replace two members of the Zoning Board and one from the Planning Board whose resignations were due to their attendance at an advocacy group called Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhood, (CUPON).
The new members are Garnold Miller, who previously served as an alternate member and will now serve as a regular member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, and Janine Kaunitz Fritch who joined the Zoning Board as alternate member number one. A third appointment is under review at this time as the appointee is unavailable.
Miller’s term ends on June 30, 2023 while Fritch’s term will end on June 30, 2021
The Planning Board still has two vacancies to fill. Carl Book Jr. who served as the Zoning Board’s vice chairman has stepped up as that board’s chairman.
The Township Council approves appointments for the Zoning Board while Mayor Michael Reina appoints members to the Township Planning Board. That board saw a vacancy when member Richard Egan resigned on Aug. 23.
The three members resigned after word spread of their attendance at a CUPON meeting. CUPON is a grass-roots organization formed to curb development. Accusations began to circulate through reports posted in The Lakewood Scoop shortly after the CUPON of Jackson and Manchester held its first meeting on Aug. 15 at a Jackson firehouse.
The Lakewood Scoop reported that Zoning Board Chairman Sheldon J. Hofstein, Joseph Sullivan and Egan had attended that meeting. According to that media outlet the meeting involved strategy discussions about how to counter proposed development plans involving the Orthodox Jewish community.
Hofstein resigned on Aug. 26 while Sullivan and Egan resigned from their respective board positions on Aug. 23.
Each were secretly recorded during the meeting and the sound clips from that meeting were posted to The Lakewood Scoop’s report. During a Sept. 10 Jackson Council meeting the three men said they had been asked to resign and singled out Councilman Kenneth Bressi in particular, saying he demanded their resignations.
[adrotate banner="278"]They in turn, demanded Bressi’s resignation during the council meeting and blasted the council for not hearing them out. Sullivan asked that he, Egan and Hofstein be reinstated to their respective boards.
Hofstein had served on the board for 11 years and his term would have ended in January 2020. Sullivan was an alternate member who recently became a full member and his term would have expired in January 2023. He also resigned from the township’s Rent Leveling Board.
Egan’s resignation letter to Mayor Michael Reina from the Planning Board included his resignation from the Jackson Environmental Commission.
Zoning Board Attorney Sean Gertner was quoted in The Asbury Park Press saying that for members of the board to attend a meeting where anti-development strategies are being discussed, potentially taints the outcome of any individual application and potentially adds to the possibility of future litigation. The attorney also suggested that Hofstein and Sullivan’s judgement could have come into question during future application hearings had they remained on the board.
The Zoning Board approves/denies applications for land use applications that do not conform to the township’s master plan. The Planning Board approves/denies development projects that conform to the township’s master plan.
