Borough Council and Fire Company working out a compromise

At last night's Borough Council Meeting, the Mayor took a brave step and seized on a comment by the Fire Company's lawyer about a contract to forge a means of compromise.  The next reading of the ordinance was tabled.   The Fire Company is to provide a strawhorse of a contract between the Fire Company and the Borough, which will then become the central theme for negotiations.  Any ordinance would then reflect that contract.  It is not yet finished but the direction is now much improved.  Hopefully, no one will drag their feet and the negotiations will proceed calmly with mutual respect.

There is an on-going investigation into whether a member of Council acted improperly regarding the shutout of the Fire Company prior to the March Council Meeting.  The paper trail lays suspicion but is not definitive.

There was also a forecast of a calendar for the home page of the Borough as well a page of recycling information.  A pdf of the Town Crier Bulletin has already been added.  The intent is to provide an archive of the Town Criers as they are printed.  Hopefully the calendar will show special events as well as recurring events such as trash and recycling pickups and Planning, Council, and Recreation Council meetings.  It will be nice to know ahead when trash or recycle pickups are delayed by holidays as the one-call announcing them often came after I already pulled the cart to the curb.

Since nothing was said about recycling for businesses, I went up to make that suggestion as I had read just before the meeting that Gloucester County requires businesses to recycle.  Two Council members responded at the same time - one to tell me that carts for businesses not recycling were in the works and the other to put me down for not realizing that the county already gives us credit for business recycling that is reported to them.  And, I heard in the background from a Public Works employee that they are intending to deliver some carts to the apartment building.  The Council member who sought to inform me that Newfield already gets credit didn't realize that some of the businesses don't recycle at all because their dumpster service doesn't support it.  So while I was publicly embarrassed because my reason for justifying Newfield picking up business recycling didn't cover all the cases,  the end result is what is important - more recycling.  I'll take that trade off any day.