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Council Gets To Work Discussing Ethics Committee
By Catherine Snipe
Brick is considering who would serve on an ethics board, and for how long, as a proposal for a committee to handle ethics complaints moves forward in the township council.
At its caucus meeting this week, the Brick Township council further discussed an ordinance Councilman Anthony Matthews is drafting.
The ordinance comes as a way to heal some of the wounds of recent scandals former Brick officials faced, such as disgraced Mayor Joseph Scarpelli's guilty plea earlier this month to accepting money from a developer.
The idea is to create a body to handle complaints about elected officials and township staff.
In the draft of the ordinance, the township clerk would act as an ethics officer who would hand out the township code of conduct and state ethics law to township officials and staff.
It would also create a panel to review complaints before deciding whether to send them to state ethics officials. That could create a quasi-judicial body, and the council debated whether it wanted to create a committee that needed a special designation from the state as a local ethics board.
The draft of the ordinance proposes the local committee, called the Ethics Information Committee, would have three council members and three residents serve on it.
The idea is to have all six members serve one-year terms, but Mayor Dan Kelly and Councilwoman Kathy M. Russell, suggested the committee would be better served without any elected officials and with members having longer terms.
They suggested the committee advise residents on the state process for filing complaints, instead of overseeing complaints itself.
Whatever the specific form, council members supported the idea of ethics reform for the township.
In other business, the township council's next meeting, on Tuesday, will decide new rules for the type of tow trucks allowed to respond to police calls for vehicle accidents.
When motor vehicle accidents occur in Brick, the police will often need to call a tow truck to haul away the damaged automobiles. The proposed ordinance will require the responding towers to have certain equipment in order to handle the job, for example the ability to put the vehicle on a bed or drag it behind the tow truck.
Next week's scheduled agenda also has the council awarding a bid for the control of geese on township facilities.
The township will pay $325 each week it uses Goose Runners of Howell, in a twoyear contract not exceeding $33,800.
The coming meeting will also have council accepting a state grant and awarding residents and businesses in the annual B-MAC honors.
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