The Evesham Township mayor and council are not required by municipal ordinance or state statute to answer questions asked by residents during council meetings, a fact township solicitor John Gillespie repeated several times during the council’s Feb. 3 meeting.
The necessity of that repetition was as a result of residents Joe Barbagiovanni and Rosemary Bernardi using their time during the public comment portion of the meeting to ask council questions regarding several past and present ordinances and resolutions, to which the two residents did not immediately receive an answer.
Barbagiovanni in particular was visibly and vocally frustrated after asking about some specifications on a redevelopment plan adopted at the final meeting in December regarding certain properties in the Marlton Village district of town behind the Marlton Square Shopping Center fronted by South Maple Avenue.
Barbagiovanni said he didn’t realize where the area was until after the meeting, and wanted to know if the plan was to going knock houses down or build something there, and if so, what was going to be built.
“If you don’t understand something — the purpose of these open meetings is so that the public can understand what’s going on in the township,” Barbagiovanni said.
When Mayor Randy Brown asked Barbagiovanni if he was done with his comments, and Barbagiovanni said he’d like an answer, Brown referred Barbagiovanni to Gillespie, who for the second time in the meeting explained that council was not required to answer questions asked by residents.
Earlier in the meeting, Gillespie had given council a presentation on redundancies and outdated parts of the township ordinance he wished to eliminate, and at that time, Brown asked Gillespie to explain the rules of public comment as well, as public comment would follow Gillespie’s presentation.
Gillespie said the governing body, when presented with questions from the public, could engage in dialogue if it so chose, or it could answer after the public comment portion of the meeting concluded, or council could use the council comments section of the meeting to answer questions, or council could choose not to answer questions at all.
“It is an opportunity for folks to ask questions, but answers don’t have to be given,” Gillespie said. “It is comment only. It’s however you (council) want to handle it, but it doesn’t necessitate a back and forth.”
Barbagiovanni said he believed the council was “doing an injustice to the people of this town” by refusing to answer questions.
Gillespie said he respectfully disagreed with Barbagiovanni that his questions were unanswered, and detailed the process of how a redevelopment or rehabilitation ordinance gets adopted, and how the text within is available to the public and how the ordinance was also referred to the planning board for review.
“I’m not trying to make this a smartass answer, but I think it almost goes without saying, sir, that governing bodies and municipalities, whatever your view, don’t adopt ordinances to make things look worse,” Gillespie said.
Next to speak was Bernardi, who had previously had questions unanswered during the preliminary public comment portion of the meeting.
Bernardi again asked about ordinances to amend chapters of the town code dealing with land development and construction fees, specifically whether those fees were rising or declining.
“Mr. Gillespie gave an overview of how council could address that answer, he said you could do it in your council comments or when you were voting but you didn’t discuss it, so I still don’t know whether those fees were increased or decreased,” Bernardi said.
At the end of the meeting, Councilmember Ken D’Andrea and Deputy Mayor Bob DiEnna used their council comments to address Barbagiovanni and Bernardi.
In regard to Barbagiovanni, D’Andrea said that although nothing specific was yet planned for the area on South Maple Avenue, the goal was to perhaps have a mixed-use area similar to the Gateway apartments with some retail.
In regard to Bernardi, DiEnna said the construction and land use fees she asked about were going up, and township manager Tom Czerniecki said it was a result of land development fees not being visited since 2011 and the construction code fees not being visited since 2009.
