Chairperson Thomas Corbi and Vice Chairperson James Geiger of the Neighborhood Services Advisory Committee have resigned.
The resignations were announced at last week’s Medford Town Council meeting, and they are to be effective immediately.
The purpose of the Medford Neighborhood Services Advisory Committee is to advise the township council and manager with respect to civic and community activities within the township, including parks and recreation, athletics, the arts, senior citizens, homeowners associations, education and special events.
A resolution was received by the council from the NSAC expressing its support of the leadership and the direction of the executive board.
At this point, there is only one member left on this executive board.
“So they passed a resolution affirming the leadership and then the leadership resigned,” Councilman Chris Buoni said.
Carol Stover is a member of the committee, and she personally had no knowledge the members intended on resigning.
“I was surprised to see the two resignations come out,” Stover said. “I really didn’t think it was going to happen.”
Others who spoke on the matter were surprised to hear the township council was unaware these two people, who were the head of this organization, planned on resigning and thought there were signs leading up to these two leaving.
“Just listening to them, I had a pretty good feeling that this was what they were going to do,” resident Michael Reilly said.
One individual in particular found this to be an internal problem.
“I think you are going to have to question why people who are loyal to you are now questioning, and I think you are confusing apathy with support,” resident Mike Panarello said.
Panarello, who was a long-time teacher in the Medford education system, emphasized his point with great enthusiasm.
“I wish you would take a hard look at the fact that these people who have worked so hard for the town and so hard for the council and so hard for people of Medford are now resigning,” Panarello said. “And if you do not do that, I think you are making a mistake.”
Council will look to put together a plan, as it didn’t anticipate the resignations.
“We haven’t had a meeting since we received either the resolutions or the resignations, so we certainly haven’t discussed it,” Mayor Charles Watson said. “At this point, we don’t know what were going to do. We haven’t discussed it.”
The standard procedure for filling board vacancies is to advertise the positions for 30 days, take applications and, in this case, appoint a new chair.
“If there’s vacant seats, we’ll fill the vacancies,” Buoni said.
