Have you ever wondered why the council meetings “public comment” period is “NOT a question/answer session”?
Well, last night we got an answer in real time from the Township Clerk Sherry Marnell that demonstrated precisely why the politicians do not want a question/answer session. Sometimes township officials cannot disguise their resentment at a line of questioning which contradicts their decision making.
Resident Jeff Eversmeyer asked Clerk Sherry Marnell how much money it costs to produce the township Calendar [$10,000]. He then compared that to the cost of the often missing-in-action “newsletter” [$3,500 each]. His follow-up request for Sherry to repeat why administration decided to retire the calendar this year elicited an interesting response:
“I’ll tell you. Money had to be allocated for runoff elections that you all voted for. So there” Township Clerk Sherry Marnell.
Point of logic: A $10,000 budget line item, like “the calendar”, in a budget of over 6 million dollars is about 2/10 of one percent. If township administrators deemed the calendar worthy, they could have found that money.
They didn’t. As Ms. Marnell stated in her answer, “the calendar is out of date the day it is published”. There is some truth to that statement since meetings listed in the calendar get canceled.
To be fair, Ms. Marnell’s point that the township had to allocate a new category of money for a possible runoff election is also true. There were estimates that the runoff might cost anywhere from $35,000 to $100,000. But its not clear that the township was out of money to pay for a calendar.
There are offsets to this cost which Ms. Marnell did not volunteer in her answer. Contacted after the meeting, council member Tara Astor discussed the windfall tax revenue which comes from Cannabis taxation.
“We got $52,000 in cannabis tax revenue in one month” Council Member Tara Astor.
Its debatable whether Mount Holly really needs to spend $10,000 on a paper calendar, but blaming voters for the decision to retire the calendar is dubious at best and the way the answer was given shows an attitude of resentment that should not exist.
