Manalapan mayor did her job in negotiating condo agreements

As the board president of Southfield Estates Home-owners Association I would like to comment on the Nov. 14 article regarding the Manalapan Township Committee election ("Cozzolino, Ward Keep Local Government in Dems’ Hands.")

I feel (the article) did not state all the facts regarding the condo associations and used quite in-flammatory quotes from defeated candidate Thomas Toto.

While quoting Toto, "When you make a deal using taxpayers’ money to buy off the condo associations for a vote, I think it shows what this administration is about," (the article) paints a very biased and frankly false picture of what transpired between the condo associations and Manal-apan.

(The article) did not include that receiving financial reimbursement is the law under the Kelly Bill. We receive only a percentage of our actual costs, leaving us with a still heavier tax burden than non-condo residents. (We have double taxation, we pay our taxes plus we pay for our own services.)

The Kelly Bill was passed in 1991, at the time it was the (Manalapan) Republican administration of James Gray and Jack McKenna. The township met with the associations and the original agreements were made. Was that vote buying?

In 1997, under a Republican administration, payments ceased or were drastically cut on those annual agreements without explanation.

Numerous attempts were made to discuss the non-payment of the Municipal Services Agreement (MSA) with Southfield Estates. We were told they were working on it. It took nearly three years of requests before we had a meeting.

When we were finally granted a meeting in October 2000, we were met by the township attorney and the township administrator, but not the mayor at the time, Stuart Moskovitz. Previous MSA negotiations had always included the current mayor. We demanded that the township honor the law and that being in default for over three years while a new MSA was being formulated was inexcusable and wrong.

Covered Bridge had already filed a lawsuit against the township to recover the money owed them, we told the township we would also sue if they did not present us with an MSA agreement in the very near future.

In January 2001, Mayor Mary Cozzolino announced that she would make this a priority of her administration and she has kept her word.

The article states that these agreements were initiated and signed to buy votes, the quote used is sour grapes and so untrue. Mayor Cozzolino did the right thing for all condo and townhome associations and for Manalapan.

The town was breaking the law, failing to live up to their obligation to provide MSA’s to the associations. Mayor Cozzo-lino followed the law, negotiated MSA’s in good faith, settled the lawsuit with Covered Bridge and removed Manalapan from future lawsuits for failing to reach an agreement. She did her job and the citizens of Manalapan once again showed their support by re-electing her.

Cynthia B. Maurino

Manalapan