Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Plan would save money and enhance education, Fulcomer says
Township Councilwoman Fran Siddons sat through a barrage of criticism at the Jan. 28 council meeting from those who disagreed with her views on shared services between the two school districts in town. Speaker after speaker - mostly Berkeley Township Board of Education bus drivers who were afraid they would lose their jobs - hammered Siddons for her comments at a recent board meeting when she suggested combining administrative services for the Central Regional and Berkeley districts and merging the two bus fleets. Siddons later described the meeting as a "lynch mob." Tuesday night's council meeting was markedly different. Several speakers - including Berkeley Board of Education President James Fulcomer - defended her right to speak at the …
Friday, January 4, 2013
Sophia Gingrich Tapped As Board Vice-President
Berkeley Board of Education members in a split vote selected South Seaside Park resident James Fulcomer to serve as board president in 2013. Fulcomer - who was elected to his first term in 2011 - thanked board members for their support at a brief board reorganization meeting tonight. He announced earlier Thursday that he had stepped down as two-term chairman of the Zoning Board of Adjustment and president of the Regular Republican Organization of Berkeley Township. The vote to appoint him school board president was 5 to 4. Board members Salvatore Ferlise, Sophia Gingrich, Fulcomer and new board members Patrick Mooney and Keith Fisher voted yes. Former board president Steven Pellecchia, board member Louis J. Tuminaro, new board member …
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Berkeley Board of Education Vice-President wants to concentrate on school board issues
Berkeley Board of Education Vice-President James Fulcomer has resigned as chairman of the Board of Adjustment and will step down as president of the Regular Republican Organization Club of Berkeley Township in February. Fulcomer served two full terms and chaired the Board of Adjustment through a number of controversial applications, including the redevelopment of the Santo Marina site last summer. He cast the lone no vote on the application. He has served as president of the Republican Club for four years. Fulcomer said he wants to devote all of his free time to the school board. "The two positions together took up so much time that I was not able to spend as much time on Board of Education matters as I wanted to spend," he said. "Of the …
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Several factors behind last-minute increase
The 2012 municipal budget was battered by several factors that led to an $864,000 increase last week, Township Administrator Frederick Ebenau said. "This budget is not down to the bone, it's down to the marrow," Ebenau said at the Sept. 25 council meeting. The Township Council in a split vote approved a budget amendment that calls for the amount to be raised by taxation to rise from $25,917,605 to $26,781,762, primarily because of circumstances beyond the administration's control, Ebenau said. That includes a drop in the township's tax collection rate, deferred school taxes, hefty leftover snow removal charges from 2011, retirement payouts, a record number of tax appeals and loss of revenue in the construction department, he said. The …
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Test results should be available on Thursday, superintendent says
The staff of the Berkeley Township Elementary School was summoned to a special meeting yesterday over a possible environmental problem in the building. Schools Superintendent James D. Roselli confirmed that a company is doing testing at the school on Emory Avenue in Bayville. But he declined to discuss the nature of the problem with Berkeley Patch until test results are back on Thursday. "We are in the process of identifying exactly what is going on in the building," said Roselli, who was appointed superintendent in late June. "We don't have any answers." Board Vice-President James Fulcomer said he had "heard a rumor" the school was closed to staff members and contacted Roselli's secretary. He was told there was a meeting about the …
Monday, August 20, 2012
Berkeley Board of Ed members approve the minutes as is, no tape recording of meeting available
Berkeley Board of Education Vice-President James Fulcomer recently refused to approve the minutes of the May 24 meeting because he said they don't accurately reflect what occurred. "I don't believe the minutes should be false," he said during the Aug. 16 board meeting. "I think they should be true." Fulcomer said back in May the board had not actually voted to hire the district's transportation coordinator, but only to close the debate on the matter. He asked for a correction to the minutes at the Aug. 16 meeting, but did not get it. "Why are your words the truth and the minutes not the truth?" Board President Steven Pellecchia said. Fulcomer asked that the word "considered" be substituted for "voted on" the hiring. He said board member …
Friday, June 29, 2012
Developer Ray Masucci granted a number of variances
Even though all but one resident objected to the density of the Santo Marina redevelopment plan, Board of Adjustment members voted 6 to 1 recently to approve 15 single-family homes on undersized lots. "These houses are too close together," said Gene Faljean, Fairwood Drive, at the June 26 board meeting. "Our neighborhood is not the neighborhood it should be in. I left Staten Island because they were building on smaller and smaller lots. Is this what's going to happen to our neighborhood in the future? It just can't happen." The vote came at the end of another four-hour long special meeting on the application. Zoning Board President James Fulcomer cast the lone no vote. "I just thought there were too many houses," Fulcomer said after the …
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Residents who objected to developer's plan leave Town Hall in disgust
The Board of Adjustment approved a developer's plan to build 15 single-family homes on the old Santo Marina site over the objections of many neighborhood residents tonight. "Please, you're all on the take," one woman yelled. "You should all be ashamed, " another man said. The vote to approve Ray Masucci's proposed "The Cove On Toms River At Berkeley" was 6 to 1. Board President James Fulcomer cast the lone no vote. "I just thought there were too many houses," Fulcomer said after the meeting. The approval came after two special zoning board meetings that Masucci paid for. His original plan called for 25 townhouses on the defunct marina site off Williams Street in Bayville. Masucci later discarded the townhouse plans and then proposed 19 …
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Earlier board memo that had Fulcomer removed from all but one committee sent out 'in error,' Pellecchia says.
Just ignore that first memo. Berkeley Board of Education President Steven J. Pellecchia said today an earlier memorandum sent to board members that reshuffled committee appointments and removed board Vice-President James Fulcomer from all but one was sent out by mistake by a board secretary. "I didn't want it sent out," he said. "She apologized and it was retracted. There's no real changes. Not yet. I'm still working on it. I was just doodling." According to the retracted memo, Fulcomer - who is the board vice-president - would have been removed from all committees except for community relations. The retracted memo had him removed him from the shared services committee, which he chairs. The retracted memo was sent to board members at 4:…
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Residents not happy with proposed density in redevelopment of old Santo Marina in Bayville
When Staten Island developer Ray Masucci took to the microphone at a recent Zoning Board meeting, he posed the question many in the audience wanted to ask. "Why 19 houses?" he asked. Masucci said when he first laid eyes on the defunct Santo Marina site off Williams Street in Bayville, he thought he was the "prettiest" site he'd ever seen in his life. But his plans to build 19 three-story single-family homes on the riverfront site didn't sit well with most of the nearly 100 people who showed up at a special Board of Adjustment meeting on May 23. It also didn't sit well with zoning board planner Anna Wainwright, who hammered Masucci and well-known Ocean County attorney John Paul Doyle with questions. Masucci says he has to build 19 homes …
Bill Suskevich
1:58 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
No governing body should support any jobs , not needed with tax dollars. We elect people to represent us and govern with common sense. If all members of a town council have the same ideas and support the same program, we do not need a council. One person with one idea will do the same thing. Bill Suskevich more ›