TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—Mayor Peter Calamari said the town is no longer bound to preserve Washington Township Swim and Recreation Club, urging the council on Feb. 7 approve a nearly $792,000 bond ordinance and an $800,000 final purchase price.
He said a pool use remained an option and that the administration would pursue grants.
Members present backed the bond, voting at a second required hearing, 4-0, for the debt, and giving Calamari his second chance at the 6.5-acre Ridgewood Boulevard North property, after a $1 million offer he tendered last summer flopped with bonded members of the private club.
There was no information disclosed on the bond’s average annual cost to taxpayers over its 40-year term. We reached out to new town CFO John Corcoran but did not hear back by press time. The funds will be available March 2, an official said.
During last year’s try for the land and improvements, the town evidently met the club’s asking price but came in second to a summer camp outfit. That deal collapsed, according to club trustees in an email on New Year’s Eve, who said they’d come back to Calamari in hopes of a new deal.
Calamari offered few details at the time of the first attempted deal, but said the town would try to operate the club, established in 1963, for two years to see if it could be done profitably.
After that, he said, “I’d be the first one to pull the plug.” He said he’d prefer a recreational use and spoke out against the Fair Share Housing Center.
Former councilman Michael DeSena — Calamari’s 2021 challenger for mayor — had expressed concern that the town had no feasibility studies toward the acquisition.
The club owes an undisclosed amount of money to bonded members who have been owed refunds for years.
Voting to approve the bond ordinance on Feb. 7 were Council President Desserie Morgan, Vice President Stacey Feeney, and members Tom Sears and Daisy Velez, who ran with fellow Republican Calamari in the election. Councilman Steven Cascio, who’d voted for the first bid, was absent.
Calamari also said at the meeting that the property would not be used to site a new DPW headquarters — the longstanding one at the municipal complex having recently been razed and its toxic soil remediated on a state DEP deadline extension — but said it would suit seasonal DPW equipment not used on a regular basis.
The town is parking DPW heavy equipment on a leased lot at Our Lady of Good Council church on Ridgewood Road, across from Westwood Regional High School.
Calamari emphasized prior to the vote, “The current purchase agreement for the swim club property does not call for the town to operate a swim club.”
He said he was “not saying that it will not be a swim club, just that it is not mandatory as it was in the previous understanding.”
He also said he submitted a letter of intent to the administrator of the county Open Space Trust Fund “outlining the purchase and notifying them that we will be applying for a grant.”
Calamari said, “We will be doing all the necessary studies, including environmental, during the due diligence period.”
He said if council approved the purchase, he would “commence a study on not just what can be done with this property but to look at our total inventory of parks and fields to make recommendations with cost estimates.” The facilities evidently need to be brought up to code.
Residents weigh in
Several residents calling in to the meeting feared might be used as a site for DPW operations. Both the mayor and council members said that this was not the case.
Before the vote, resident Anthony Conti, of Ridgewood Boulevard North, asked in the meeting’s general comment period whether the DPW would be moved to the swim club property.
He cited previous problems at the facility when the club rented space to a company that stored a Dumpster, trucks and landscaping equipment near neighbors’ property on Ridgewood Boulevard North.
That club side business, a move to raise money for operations, taxes, and overdue refunds, led to a hefty fine from the township
Feeney said, “It wasn’t the township that put that there, since it has been the same thing that everybody is saying: The DPW will not be at the swim club. Please have some faith that we are telling you the truth and we are not lying to you. I’m holding to that.”
Conti questioned the cost of running a swim club and the volume of chemicals that have leaked into the ground from the pool over years.
Questions on the swim club were then deferred to the hearing on the ordinance. No one called in for that portion of the meeting.
Former Independent councilman Michael Ullman called in to ask for an update on the Pascack Road-Washington Avenue intersection. which at last word was on the county’s schedule for spring. Calamari said he had no update on that.
Ullman also asked when the public might see preliminary designs for a new DPW facility, which Calamari has said were being circulated among DPW officials.
Calamari replied, “We’re still working with the senior members of the department in working on their needs, like the firehouse and the ambulance building. It will go through a number of iterations so that’s the process it’s in right now.”
He had said at a Jan. 26 Greater Pascack Valley Chamber of Commerce mayors’ breakfast that plans would be presented to the council soon. (See “Town pushing for land deals nears intersection overhaul,” Pascack Press, Feb. 7, 2022.)
Ullman also asked for an update on the emergency services building: its budget and expected occupancy date. The date of completion has been sliding back for months, most recently to April.
Calamari said, “The ESB is moving along. I don’t want to commit to a date yet but I believe we’re still looking OK for an April–May timeline.”
He added, “There are just a few supply chain issues going on with getting parts, so we’re keeping that in mind.”
It’s unknown how much information would be released to the public, or when, as part of that process. Members Cascio and DeSena last year suggested that the township should present its development projects to the appropriate local land use board for review on a voluntary basis. (See “WT attorney says project reforms could hamstring township,” Pascack Press, Oct. 8, 2021.)
As for the project budget, Calamari said, “We are still within the budget specs and no one has told me anything different: that by the end of this project we will exceed them.”
Council president Desserie Morgan asked about putting ESB project updates on the council’s project tracker, to report at meetings.
Calamari said, “We’ll see where it fits best.”
Asked if the town intended 95 Pascack Road — the site of the former Charlie Brown’s restaurant — officials declined to answer.
On the same point, resident Joe Durso called in to ask town attorney Ken Poller if language he used in an email to the restaurant’s owner — proposing a voluntary sale at fair market value or face a “condemnation route” — could also be leveled against homeowners.
Poller said no, and added in part, “There are commercial considerations involved.” (See “Hardball: $1.3M bid on Charlie Brown’s property,” Pascack Press, Jan. 31, 2022.)
— With John Snyder