Community Corner

District 4 Parking Plan Coming Back Friday

District 3 parking plan narrowly gets council's preliminary approval; final adoption for that part of plan is scheduled for July 30

The parking plan restricting non-resident parking during overnight, summer hours in parts of Districts 4 will go back into effect on Friday, based on a Point Beach Council vote at the end of a long Tuesday night (July 9) meeting.

A vote to adopt an ordinance, on second reading, to re-establish the summer, overnight parking plan that was in place until a few weeks ago in most of District 4, starting south of Broadway, was passed nearly unanimously by council.

The only council member not actually voting for it was Councilmember Kristine Tooker, who, at the suggestion of Mayor Vincent Barrella, did not vote because she was attending the meeting via teleconference and Barrella had a concern about a legal challenge being raised regarding the legitimacy of her vote while she was not physically present in the meeting room in Borough Hall.

A separate vote for first reading of an ordinance to re-establish the parking plan in a small section of District 3 was far less amicable. Councilmembers Stephen Reid, Andy Cortes and William Mayer voted against it, new Councilmember Dave Cavagnaro, along with Councilmembers Bret Gordon and Tooker voted for it.

Barrella told Tooker, "We're going to have to roll the dice with Grasso and Gasiorowski. You'll have to vote on this one, Kris." Tooker then voted and Barrella cast a yes vote to break the tie.

The first reference was to Superior Court Judge Vincent Grasso, who ruled in mid June that Michael Corbally had a conflict of interest as a councilman when he voted for the parking plan because he is a Realtor in District 4. Corbally resigned as a councilman the day after learning of the Grasso ruling.

Ronald Gasiorowski is the attorney representing the plaintiffs who brought a suit against Corbally and a separate suit against the town for passing the parking plan. Gasiorowski also represents Martell's Tiki Bar in its federal court suit against the parking plan.

After the meeting, Municipal Clerk Maryann Ellsworth said that while the Borough Public Works department may begin to put the parking plan signs back up as early as Wednesday, the ordinance re-establishing the parking plan in District 4 cannot go into effect until it is published in a weekly newspaper that is sold on news stands Thursday and mailed to subscribers' homes by Friday.

Ellsworth said she expects the police department to begin enforcing the parking plan in affected sections of Districts 4 on Friday.

The second reading and adoption of the District 3 parking plan is scheduled for July 30.

A number of residents at the June 25 council meeting, as well as the one held Tuesday night, spoke in favor of the parking plan being put back in both districts, as they were before Grasso's ruling invalidated the plan.

Because Grasso's criticism was directed only at what he termed Corbally's conflict of interest, and not at the legal validity of the parking plan itself, the council felt it was able to re-establish the plan.

Most of the debate regarding the parking plan ordinances centered not so much on the merits of the ordinances, but on differing opinions about whether Mayer has a conflict of interest.

In a long, heated exchanged, Barrella insisted that Mayer does have a conflict because Mayer's brother in law, Chip Di Corcia, works as Director of Security for Martell's, which is suing the town over the parking plan.

Barrella said that while he disagrees with Grasso's opinion about Corbally, he said that if that ruling is overlaid onto the scenario with Mayer, DiCorcia and the pending Martell's lawsuit, that would mean, using Grasso's logic, that Mayer has a conflict of interest.

Mayer said he has researched the question, that his voting on the matter does not violate any ethics laws and that the mayor's criticism of him was "unprofessional."

Mayer also said, before the votes were cast, that he intended on voting for the District 4 parking plan ordinance and that the mayor had raised the challenge against him "for nothing."

"But according to Judge Grasso's opinion, it doesn't matter how you vote, don't you understand that?" Barrella said to Mayer. "You are contaminating this vote and I have to wonder why."

Municipal Attorney Sean Gertner said that while he has found there is no legal conflict with Mayer voting on the parking plan, he said it's important for all council members to publicly disclose any relationships or matters that could even be construed as a conflict of interest, to "look inward" and to vote in the way they believe best represents the general public.

He quoted a judge who had opined that elected officials will fall out of public favor if the public perceives they are casting votes for reasons not in the best interest of the public.

This story was originally posted on the night of July 9, after council took the vote for the parking plan.


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