Freeholders To Vote On Term Limits For Boards And Commissions
By Art Gallagher
The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would establish term limits for volunteers who serve on autonomous county boards and commissions.
The county has seven such boards and commissions; the Parks Commission, Mosquito Commission, Library Commission, Board of Health, Monmouth County Improvement Authority, Bayshore Regional Outfall Authority and the Brookdale Board of Trustees.
If the resolution is approved, boards whose members have terms of three years will be limited to four consecutive terms. Those boards with four year terms will be limited to three consecutive terms. Boards whose members are appointed for five years will be limited to two terms.
The resolution allows for former board members to apply for different boards when they are term limited out and to reapply to the board they served on after sitting out a full term.
The resolution will go into effect on May 1, 2012, if approved.
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[…] Freeholders To Vote On Term Limits […]
Hey Art…the Freeholders have their meeting tomorrow, Wednesday April 27th instead of Thursday. Its at the regular times, 2pm for the workshop and 7pm for the regular meeting.
Thanks Bill
Can’t wait to see which idiot votes against this.
@TR keep in mind this is for volunteers. Those who do not receive any compensation. Voting yes is a slap in the face to those who give up a lot of their time to better their community. Now if your talking about the Board of Trustees at Brookdale, hell yes there should be term limits on them. But not what airhead Amy Mallet is proposing.
Rob Clifton at the last meeting I think had the better resolution of bringing the individuals in for a vetting type process, review their attendance, basically interview them again and if the Director and Freeholder liaison to that board feel that they have gone above and beyond then they should be reappointed without term limits.
You can term limit someone who is working for you for free. They give up time with their friends and family to help better serve their community. The county will become more corrupt and more political if term limits for volunteers are put in place. The Freeholders should start talking about term limits for themselves first before they go attacking volunteers. And when I say Freeholders, I mean Amy Mallet. The one who disregards the work of a volunteer!!!!!
we need term limits at all levels of government. Lets start here.
I appreciate they are volunteers but so are school board members and town council gets paid but such a small amount whats the point. they should have term limits also.
Some not all use these volunteer positions to network in a particular industry so it is not always pure altruism.
Fact is term limits makes entrenched corruption less likely.
No one is indespensible and after 10 years they should get a new hobby.
if saying that is a smack in the face then they need a tougher hide.
Let’s start it off by clearing the air. Amy Mallet is doing this because its a political stunt. She needs to make headlines because she has done NOTHING the 3 years she’s been on the board number 1. 2nd, I agree with you that there should be term limits on elected officials. School Board members may not get paid, but they are still an elected position. And there are a lot more towns (especially these days) where town council does not get paid because of the economic times. But, they are an elected official.
Now, before setting term limits for volunteers, I’d like to see the board propose a resolution to put on the ballot to term limit elected officials on the county level. 3 terms, 3 years each term, for Freeholders and Sheriff and 2 terms, 5 year terms, for Clerk and Surrogate.
Also, some boards and commissions require specific qualifications by state law. Say this term limits resolution (which was tabled yet again for the next meeting) goes through; and someone on a health board (which is a board that requires specific qualifications) is term limit out and they can’t find someone with the state mandated qualifications, what do you do then?
The answer to that question was not in the resolution. Another example of a politician not allowing a crisis to go to waste. And this is what happens when there is this knee-jerk reaction to a problem. Yes, there was a problem at Brookdale; let’s fix Brookdale. Don’t attack other boards and commissions that are working efficiently, responsibly, and revenues exceeding expenses, because of 1 rotten apple.
How many meetings of these boards and commissions have you attended? Over the years I have attended quite a few.
They are moribund and filled with industry insiders and people who have come to imagine they are indispensable. They don’t question what the professional staff tells them and they have no new ideas. Hell half of these boards should be done away with.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone to be on one of these boards for more then 10 years.
Quite frankly I don’t care what Mallets motivations are. She is a politician so her motives are automatically suspect doubly so because she is a democrat.
Foe whatever reason she is doing this she happens to be right.
Right is right and true is true. If a certain Freeholder does not support this I will not vote for her in November. I will not vote for Mallet but I will just cast only one vote for Freeholder.
CommonSense – check your facts! Some of those boards and commissions listed in the main post are paid, not volunteer. In fact, they even help count toward PERS credits to someone already in the system…
It should cover all the committees and boards.
like Solid Waste advisory, Planning Board,
Agricultural Board,workforce investment board, Fair housing Board, Stormwater technical advisory committee, Treansportation Council, , Mental Health Board, Board of Alcohol and drug abuse, Human relations commission, Human services advisory council, Construction Board of Appeals, monmouth County Historical commision………
@Abe those that receive compensation should get terms limits. But they want to limit those who don’t. I just think you should start with elected official first before you start with volunteers. And its not black and white. If you listen to the workshop meeting minutes on the county website now, you’ll hear Director Clifton say that legally they may not be able to term limit certain boards. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, so I suggest you listen to the minutes and carefully listen to the questions he has for County Counsel to look into the legality of all of this. Amy Mallet just wants to make headlines because she’s now realized that she can no longer ride John Curley’s headline hogging tail anymore so she needs something else.
Let’s talk about the waste from Health and Human Services of more then $250,000 that Amy Mallet oversees and neglected to inform the other Freeholders about it and tried to cover up so she can protect her former running mate and the other appointees she supported when she was in the majority. Let’s talk about that. Again, I urge you to listen to the exchange between Curley and Mallet at the workshop meeting about the SCAT bus issue
If Clifton said that I can not imagine what he is talking about. these boards are appointed for a set term. There is no law that says the Freeholders have to reappoint someone.
Nobody is saying Mallet is doing this for the right reasons or that elected officials shouldn’t be term limited or that there are not other cuts to be made.
None of that means this proposal is a bad idea.
It wasn’t that exact quote per say, but along those lines. Because for example I believe its the health board that is required to take recommendations from towns, so what Clifton said that he wants County Council to look into if lets say they’re term limited from the county, the volunteer, and the town recommends he or she for the same position to represent that town on a board, can the Freeholders legally turn down the recommendation from the town. Not all boards and commissions are just appointed positions. For some, there are certain qualifications that many people don’t have.
I think this proposal is bad for boards and commissions that work and have proven to be a success the way they are run. Boards, like Brookdale, should be term limited. But this resolution Mallet is proposing only term limits 7 boards. Doesn’t include planning or zoning. She’s nit picking because she’s upset that when the Republicans took back the majority, they started replacing the Democrat appointees like the Dems did when the Republicans lost the majority. It really is childish play and that is the more reason to vote for both Freehold Republican candidates to make sure Mallet is NOT there next year. We should be focusing on the big picture, then hold their feet to the fire. But we should be concentrated on right now is making sure Mallet is voted out and her running mate, Shea, does not get on the Board.