Resident offers an update on Marlboro’s municipal maneuvering

It’s time to make the township citizenry mindful of the contemporary crop of sinuous "municipal shticks" imposed upon Marlboro rank and file by two contrived "collateral damage" governmental scenarios. These tomfoolery actions make it appropriate to establish a "township homeland security program" protecting us from agenda-driven maneuvers now taking on a life of their own in Marlboro.

We begin with the "Monopoly Game" recently played by the zoning board wherein they formulated a new process of reinventing the definition of a "variance" producing some sort of "Dysfunctional Zone Change." By way of a surgical procedure involving the infusion of Council On Affordable Housing (COAH) transferable obligatory funds, builder donated, they have accomplished this dubious feat.

The case in point is illustrated by the Tennent Estates evaluation which could very well be the forerunner of future discretionary bizarre zoning interpretations compromising guidelines which historically have protected the integrity of variances.

Let us move on to the array of consultants engaged by the township relative to potential changes to our relationship with the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education. It has already become apparent that we’ve become substantially short of the mark in all attempts.

Some efforts merited involvement, but nothing was more misdirected than the conceivability of withdrawing from the Freehold Regional High School District. The reluctance to submit the findings of the consultant’s report on that issue was allegedly based on fear [that] litigation "strategies" could be revealed in defending any projected withdrawal attempt.

This premise illustrates one generous portion of "baloney."

If simply apprised of the financial demands attributed to withdrawal, the frustrated Marlboro electorate, now experiencing the pain of growing property taxes already in place, would have climbed the "cell phone tower" adorning the Marlboro municipal compound, screaming and pro-testing withdrawal. An equitable direction would have been to provide us with dollar number costs in withdrawal, holding back divulging any alleged "strategies."

Herbert Resnick

Marlboro