Aug. 24, 2017:  Jennifer Maier, Metuchen’s business administrator, resigned earlier this month and no one is explaining what happened.

That includes Maier, who declined to explain why she resigned in a phone call Thursday. “I’ve never worked with a finer staff of people … I really enjoyed my time working there and enjoyed the town,” Maier told me.

Maier became borough administrator in January 2015. Prior to that, she worked as borough administrator in Union Beach from 2011 to 2015, according to her LinkedIn account.

I have no idea what happened, but I would like to point out that I also enjoyed chatting with Maier whenever I got around to working on a story for this blog. She was knowledgeable, friendly and open to questions — something you don’t always find among public officials.

Mayor Pete Cammarano disclosed Maier’s resignation at the Borough Council meeting Monday. He declined to explain why Maier resigned.

On an interim basis, Councilman Jay Muldoon will step into the administrator role starting Sept. 1, Cammarano said. Muldoon resigned his board seat to move into the role. That’s a significant move for Muldoon, who will no longer be on the board.

The way this has worked in the past, to fill the vacancy, Metuchen’s Democrat Committee (Muldoon is a Democrat) picks three individuals to present to Borough Council to fill the seat through Muldoon’s term, which ends this year. Council then chooses one of the individuals. I’m assuming that is the process that will work in this situation, but I’m not 100 percent sure. Trying to confirm and will update once I get more information.

Aug. 2, 2017: Improper. Invalid. Unlawful. Arbitrary. Capricious. Unconstitutional. Null and Void. And of no force and affect.

That’s how Fox & Foxx Development, LLC, describes the Metuchen Planning Board’s rejection in June of the developer’s plan to subdivide a property on W. Chestnut Ave. into two lots to make room for a new home.

The Edison real estate developer is suing the borough, Borough Council, the mayor and the planning board over the rejection of its application for what it calls a “minor” subdivision on the property at 212 W. Chestnut Ave.

Fox & Foxx also is suing companies and individuals it says are working with the borough to undermine the plan, but whose identities are unknown to the company, according to the July 10 filing made in New Jersey Superior Court. Fox & Foxx is represented by DiFrancesco, Bateman, Kunzman, Davis, Lehrer & Flaum of Warren, New Jersey. Robert Foxx and Steven Fox, managing members of the firm, did not respond to email questions Wednesday.

“Defendants’ denial was not based upon a legitimate governmental purpose, but rather, constituted an irrational and wholly arbitrary decision that deprived plaintiff of its right to equal protection generally and under the United States and New Jersey constitution,” Fox & Foxx said in the court filing.

Metuchen Mayor Peter Cammarano declined to comment, citing pending litigation. The Planning Board is set to discuss the lawsuit at its meeting Aug. 3, according to the meeting agenda, part of which will be in closed session.

Lot width

At issue is the borough’s view that the proposed development would have detrimental effects on the character of the neighborhood. “The detrimental effect of granting the application would outweigh any benefits that would result from the granting of the application, which benefit the board finds to be nonexistent,” according to the Planning Board’s resolution denying the application.

The property is about 0.37 acres and contains a two-story, single-family house with a framed deck and an above-ground pool. Fox & Foxx proposed to subdivide the property into two separate lots with 50 feet of frontage on W. Chestnut Ave. and to build a two-story, single-family structure with an attached one-car garage, porch and paved driveway on the proposed second tract. The existing home would remain on the proposed first tract, according to court documents.

Fox & Foxx requested variances from the borough’s required 62.5-foot minimum lot width, proposed at 50 feet; 8-foot side setbacks, proposed at 5.8 feet; and the 10-foot above-ground swimming pool side setback, proposed at 5.5 feet, according to court documents.

“The granting of these requested variances would, in and of itself, be detrimental in that the size and shape of the proposed new residence, together with the reduced lot size, would create an undesirable appearance of larger two story homes on undersized lots, especially where the governing body amended the ordinance only a few years ago to strengthen the lot width requirement,” the Planning Board said in the resolution denying the application.

The board said “many” properties within 200 feet of the property are wider than the proposed lots, including one lot of 102.5 feet, six lots of 75 feet, one lot 60 feet wide, two lots 55 feet wide and one lot 52.5 feet wide, the resolution said.

The company argued the plan is in keeping with characteristics of surrounding homes. Forty percent (25) of the homes surrounding the site had lot widths of less than 50 feet, with most of those dwellings with width of 40 feet. Forty percent of the homes surrounding the site have lot widths of 50 feet, the same as the plan, Fox & Foxx said. Overall, 80 percent of the homes surrounding the plan site did not meet the borough’s 62.5 feet lot width requirement, the company said.

“The proposed dwelling substantially conformed in all aspects with municipal zoning requirements and the bulk variances which the plaintiff sought would materially conform with the surrounding dwellings,” according to court documents.

Further, the company argues the borough does not define ‘neighborhood’ in its code so it made its own definition, focusing on homes within 200 feet of the site.

June 16, 2017: The first question that came to mind when the announcement came across the wire Friday morning that Amazon was going to make its largest acquisition ever by buying Whole Foods Markets was, ‘what does this mean for Metuchen?’

My thought was, Amazon doesn’t need brick and mortar stores, right? The company is all about delivery. One way to quickly convert some of those assets into cash and help finance the deal is to sell or at least sell and lease back real estate — a tried-and-true method used by private equity firms when buying retail businesses.

However, Amazon has been trying to figure out ways to break into the grocery business and has been making inroads through its Amazon Fresh delivery service. And now it is buying itself more than 400 hard assets in the form of stores across 42 states — a massive network that has already figured out how to buy local and keep these precious, expensive products fresh.

With the acquisition, Amazon will be able to deliver these perishable items quicker to customers. The tech giant has designs on building physical stores to locate services closer to customers’ homes. From the New York Times in March:

And in groceries — a giant category in which Amazon has struggled — the company has opened a convenience store that does not need cashiers, and it is close to opening two stores where drivers can quickly pick up groceries without leaving their cars, all in Seattle. It has explored another grocery store concept that could serve walk-in customers and act as a hub for home deliveries.

So it seems like what this means is Metuchen’s store, as well as hundreds of others around the country, just got a tech-savvy owner that is all about the live retail experience.

To be clear, this is an announcement and the deal is not yet sealed. It must go through approval processes by shareholders, regulatory and other closing conditions. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2017, according to the deal announcement.

The Whole Foods store on Lake Avenue is expected to open in the fall. It’s meant to be a 44,000 square foot store employing 170 to 200 people, according to an article in the Sentinel from March.

At the time, Marjorie West, northeast marketing manager for Whole Foods, met with the Chamber of Commerce to give an update on the progress of the Lake Avenue location .

“We are very excited. Whole Foods is definitely coming to town. I can’t give a definitive date, but I know by the fall. As we get closer to when I know, we can put a banner of the date of when we will open,” she said, according to the Sentinel.

I have calls in to reps at Whole Foods and Metuchen officials. I’ll update as and when …

June 13, 2017: Leonard Roseman, chairman of the Metuchen Parking Authority, stepped down from his post early as the agency transfers much of its responsibility to Nexus Parking Systems that runs the Pearl Street parking deck.

Roseman resigned the post as of April, according to documents from the June 5 Borough Council meeting. His term was set to expire at the end of 2018.

Parking Authority Commissioner John DeFoe, agreed to become chair of the agency, Councilman Jay Muldoon said in an email to BBB. The Mayor will name someone to fill the vacancy on the Authority, Muldoon said.

Roseman said the time was right to step down from the Agency.

“My favorite history professor warned us about hanging around too long. The MPA reduced staff, moved to new quarters at Borough Hall, has a cooperative service agreement with the borough, and a great relationship with Nexux,” Roseman wrote in an email to BBB. “Seemed like a good time for an old guy to retire.”

Borough Council has worked to shrink the Authority this year, moving to three employees from five and removing Executive Director Thomas Crownover for a part-time business administrator. The Authority hired resident Cory Zaneto as the part-time business manager.

The Authority also entered an agreement with borough Public Works Department for plowing and other maintenance at remaining parking lots, Muldoon said at a Council meeting in November.

The reorganization is expected to save the borough about $50,000 for 2017.

The decision was made to shrink the organization as part of the development of the Pearl Street parking lot. That lot was the Parking Authority’s largest, and with Nexus Parking Systems managing the 750-space parking deck, the Authority has a reduced scope of responsibility, Muldoon said.

Metuchen’s Parking Authority leased the land for the parking garage to Nexus, which financed construction of the structure. The Parking Authority will receive 30 percent of net income from the parking facility, Roseman told BBB in a prior interview.

“The PA budget for 2017 will anticipate $60,000 income from Nexus. As occupancy increases the PA income will increase. My own estimate is $90,000 to $100,000 after a year or two,” Roseman said.

May 30, 2017: The opera may be coming to the borough this year.

Talks are underway to bring the the Opera Company of Brooklyn to the Metuchen Forum Theater Arts Center in the next few months, sources tell me. Nothing is set in stone and talks are still preliminary.

Richard Menziuso, a borough resident and former board member of the Opera Co. of Brooklyn, is helping facilitate talks between the Forum Theater and the opera company. Brooklyn Opera Co. is led by Jay Meetze.

Menziuso didn’t provide details about the situation as it’s still early days. A realistic timeline could be August or September, Meetze told me. Forum Theater Director Peter Loewy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

There are a few challenges — primarily is securing the space. The opera company is usually provided space without paying rent, with the host location sharing in the box office, Meetze said. The opera company also has to fund expenses for its singers traveling out to performance locations. I’m not clear on how those costs get paid.

I chatted with Meetze to get a sense of what kind of opera Metuchen might be in for. I’m excited not only for the opera to come to town, but also to meet Meetze in person. He is a driving force all on his own.

Along with the hard facts of the situation, Meetze gave me a lesson on the struggles opera singers face when performing operas in their original languages; the attributes of different types of pianos; controversy around using a virtual orchestra; and a host of others issues.

Meetze founded The Opera Co. of Brooklyn, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, in 2000. It was formed to bring affordable and accessible opera to everyone, helping to ensure the continuity of this form of art. Meetze has conducted more than 50 operas around the world.

It’s interesting how he tries to make famous operas more accessible to American audiences. He’ll cut down the length of the performances, and translate dialogue into English.

For example, the company performs Die Fledermaus, composed by Johann Strauss, in German and English. “We sing all the big musical numbers in the original language for that piece, it’s in German, and for the dialogue, we do that speaking English,” Meetze said. “So people get the gist of the plot.”

The operas are translated “only in ways that enhance the composer’s original intentions. There are people that will do things to operas to broaden appeal but not really in tune with the creators’ intentions.”

I’ll update as and if more info becomes available.

May 19, 2017: Metuchen police arrested Nahuel Buonarrigo, 19, of Perth Amboy, and Donte Guiste, 18, of Carteret, for allegedly breaking into a vehicle and stealing various items, police said Thursday.

The two men were charged with three counts of burglary, three counts of theft, three counts of theft of a credit card, one count of receiving stolen property and one count of possessing a controlled dangerous substance, police said.

Police responded to an initial call of burglary by a Metuchen resident whose vehicle was broken into around 2 a.m., police said. Police searched the area and discovered two men in the area of Coan Place and Amboy Avenue, police said.

Police stopped the men, found items on them that had been reported stolen from three different vehicles in the borough, including a laptop computer, credit cards and cash, police said. The two men also allegedly had controlled dangerous substance that was prescribed to one of the men, police said.

The two men were later taken to Middlesex County Adult Correction Center where they are being held on the charges.

The investigation is active and continuing, police said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Metuchen Police Detective James Keane at 732-632-8561.

Feb. 23, 2017: The Main Street truck ban is moving forward. But to make it happen, Metuchen may have a long fight ahead.

Council will consider a resolution on the plan to ban trucks from Main Street, possibly in the first meeting in March.

Once Council approves the plan — which must provide an alternate route for trucks to use around Metuchen — it gets forwarded to Middlesex County and the state for approval.

At a meeting last year, Mayor Peter Cammarano said the ban would be based on certain weights and lengths, but would definitely include the kind of big tractor-trailers that keep getting stuck under Metuchen’s Truck Eating Bridge.

Communities impacted by the ban also have to see the plans; in this case, the only community impacted would be Edison, according to Cammarano.

Edison would not get veto power over the plans but the County would solicit the township’s input, Cammarano said.

Cammarano said in a follow-up call he would be able to disclose the alternative route soon.

There is no timeline for how long the process could take. “This is unknown territory,” Cammarano said. He said it could be six months or a year.

At the Council meeting Tuesday, Cammarano characterized the process as potentially being a “fight.” He said the fight would not be with Edison, but could come with trucking companies that use Metuchen as a shortcut.

The ban would not include delivery trucks, which have to be able to deliver to local businesses.

“We’ve been talking about this since I was a kid,” Cammarano said last year about trucks getting stuck under the Main Street bridge, which is owned by Amtrak. “This seems to be a reasonable way to prevent bridge strikes as well as get the trucks off of where they don’t belong. It’s been a long time coming.”

Feb. 10, 2017: Metuchen’s Parking Authority restructured late last year, moving from five to three employees and removing its executive director Thomas Crownover in favor of a part-time business manager.

The reorganization is expected to result in savings of about $50,000 for 2017, Parking Authority Commissioner Leonard Roseman told me in an email response to several questions.

The Parking Authority hired Metuchen resident Cory Zaneto as part-time business manager. The Authority also shifted long-time employee Art Moore to facilities manager. Employee Dorothy Wyzykowski will maintain business and customer records.

The Authority also entered an agreement with borough Public Works Department for plowing and other maintenance at remaining parking lots, Councilman Jay Muldoon said at a Council meeting in November.

The decision was made to shrink the organization as part of the development of the Pearl Street parking lot. That lot was the Parking Authority’s largest, and with Nexus Parking Systems managing the 750-space parking deck, the Authority has a reduced scope of responsibility, Muldoon said.

Metuchen’s Parking Authority leased the land for the parking garage to Nexus, which financed construction of the structure. The Parking Authority will receive 30 percent of net income from the parking facility, Roseman said.

“The PA budget for 2017 will anticipate $60,000 income from Nexus. As occupancy increases the PA income will increase. My own estimate is $90,000 to $100,000 after a year or two,” Roseman said.

Metuchen sold short-term bonds of about $2.4 million at a 1 percent interest rate in September for various projects, including major repairs to the borough sewer system.

The bonds were purchased at face value by Amboy Bank, a commercial bank, on Sept. 11, Borough Chief Financial Officer Rebecca Cuthbert reported. Cuthbert’s report was reviewed at a Borough Council meeting in October.

Cuthbert did not respond to a request for comment. No one at Amboy Bank responded to a request for comment.

Metuchen issued the debt to fund sewer plant upgrades that became imperative after a near-catastrophic failing in a pump station, according to minutes from Council’s June meeting. Read more here: http://www.gmnews.com/2016/07/29/metuchen-bond-ordinance/.

The bond ordinance Council approved in June slated funds for improvements to sewers, including the Jersey Avenue pump station; repairs to Oakland Park, including acquisition of a composite play structure; and the acquisitions of a street sweeper and a garbage truck. Funds were also pledged for reconstruction of Durham Avenue and curb and sidewalk repairs, the ordinance said.

The bonds are backed by the borough’s tax revenues, according to the ordinance.

Metuchen has about $18.6 million of outstanding bonds (it’s unclear if the recent float is part of that total). Interest on bond principal of $2,030,000 in 2016 was $580,678, or 13.76 percent of the current budget, according to the borough’s budget report.

Local community banks like Amboy Bank are natural buyers for short-term municipal debt. Here’s an interesting write-up about this type of deal:

The direct purchase of bank-qualified bonds by commercial banks is attractive to localities – even for smaller bond issues in the $500,000-$2 million range. With this approach, an issuer directly places bonds with a bank. Professional fees, which can make smaller deals uneconomical, are substantially reduced because there is typically no placement agent, remarketing agent, letter of credit bank (and all their additional associated legal fees), rating, and possibly no trustee (or the bank that purchases the bonds will act as trustee and paying agent) as well on these transactions. Bond pricing may be higher, but the offset of the lower fees and costs can have a significant impact on the effective cost of borrowing for smaller deals.

Does debt ever go anywhere but up, like taxes? Current year debt in the 2016 budget report: $2,610,678.00. Prior year debt: $2,113,300.00.

Metuchen has a Moody’s rating of Aa2, which means the borough’s credit is rated as high quality, low-risk to pay back short term debt.

Nov. 7, 2016: Councilman James Wallace, who died early Monday after a long battle with illness, could give the history of any house on any given street, Mayor Pete Cammarano said during Borough Council meeting Monday.

Cammarano gave a warm tribute to the man who several people at the meeting said epitomized the volunteer spirit of the borough.

Wallace, who was born in 1941, spent hours talking about the borough — the people, the streets, the houses, Cammarano said. Wallace was a “historian extraordinaire for Metuchen,” he said.

“He was quick to name a house on any given street and he would give the history of every resident that lived in that house since the 1960s, often he knew the color of the houses as it evolved over time,” Cammarano said.

Wallace spent his life in service of the borough. He worked as a postal carrier for a few years, then joined the Metuchen police department and served as a volunteer firefighter. He held various leadership roles with the fire department, including as chief. He was also past president of the Middlesex County Firefighters Association and instrumental in creation of the county fire academy, Cammarano said.

He retired from the police department in 1992. He joined Borough Council in 2010.

Wallace struggled for the last years of his life with illness. But he never stopped fulfilling his council responsibilities, Council President Ronald Grayzel said. “He wouldn’t have it any other way,” Grayzel said.

Councilwoman Allison Inserro said: “The past year or so was not easy for him but I always admired his sheer will and force to persevere.”

The Metuchen Democratic Committee will present Borough Council with three names to fill Wallace’s seat through his term, which ends this year. Council has authority to pick one of the three people to fill the seat.

Wallace did not run for re-election this year, so one of the successful candidates in Tuesday’s election will eventually fill the seat starting next year.