TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—After first publicly voting 3-2 to nix a “supplemental” Phase 2 study of 95 Linwood Avenue to determine if alleged underground storage tanks may be present near the front of the site, Councilman Tom Sears changed his no vote after coming out of closed session in the early morning hours of June 9 to authorize a third environmental study on the site.
The council adjourned to closed session after a nearly four-hour public meeting, then worked to about 1 a.m. They took up what town attorney Kenneth Poller was a discussion “in your best interest” on contract ramifications after the council initially voted against a resolution he’d prepared to authorize the deeper study.
No information on either course of action was provided to the public attending the meeting in-person, on WCTV-NJ, or watching on YouTube.
“We went back in public after closed and Mr. Sears changed his vote,” Council President Desserie Morgan told Pascack Press on June 9.
“I’m so disappointed. So now the due diligence has been extended. However, we should know very soon whether we are proceeding with a vote to purchase 95 Linwood once we have this latest environmental study complete which should be in a couple of days,” Morgan wrote.
“Mr. Cascio and I were the only two ‘no’ votes for the study because he and I do not want to purchase the property,” Morgan said.
Earlier in the June 8 meeting, Poller told council and the public that the property’s seller had resisted then agreed to extending the town’s due diligence period to July 18, from its original deadline of June 14, providing additional time for a third environmental study.
He said the town’s LSRP had agreed to expedite the new work, at a cost of nearly $17,000. Mayor Peter Calamari has advocated for the 1.5-acre triangular property, in a residential area on the Paramus line and on a feeder for Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway, as the new Department of Public Works headquarters.
The town pulled the property out from under a Montessori School that was performing its due dilliegence on the purchase. The town offered the seller a comparable $1.35 million under threat of eminent domain.
The governing body has been weathering a large and passionate contingent of residents — here and in Paramus — opposed to a DPW at the site, but there is more support for a new WTPD headquarters there, which is Calamari’s second choice.
An attorney for Paramus spoke at the meeting, dunning the council — “bad planning” — for considering a DPW at the intersection so vital for travel in both towns and in the wider area. He also spoke to the loss of ratables, a loss to property values here, and a barrage of anticipated tax appeals.
The DPW was razed at the municipal complex after toxic soil was remediated. DPW equipment now is kept at the former private township swim and rec club on Ridgewood Boulevard North, which the town recently closed on. Neighbors there also object to the presence of heavy machinery and anticipated disturbances.
When the governing body emerged after closed session near 1 a.m., and voted 3-2 to permit the third environmental study, no one provided additional information or clarity on possible next steps.
“This is crazy. They voted against spending the [$16,961] in public but changed their minds in closed session. Only Morgan and Cascio voted no. Awful news,” texted Hemlock Drive resident Rose Candeletti on June 9.
A special session on the DPW was called for June 2 but cancelled that morning over what has been described as a problem with advertising the meeting. The council next meets June 20.
Prior to the night’s first vote rejecting the third environmental study, Morgan had raised a series of questions — and possible votes including not purchasing the site — that she urged the council to address and vote on immediately.
However, no additional public votes on the matter were taken as Poller urged members to consider a closed session to discuss the potential purchase contract impacts of deciding to vote for or against the options, either the DPW or police department, currently under consideration for the property.
He said the town should not be in the business, essentially, of “flipping” properties. He reminded the council the bond was for the site for a public good.
At the meeting, Morgan, Councilman Steven Cascio, and Sears expressed opposition to purchasing the property, while Council Vice President Stacey Feeney and councilwoman Daisy Velez both called for a post-purchase survey of what residents would like to see on the site.
Velez also found fault with an online petition against the DPW here that has approximately 800 signatures. She said she located one signatory in Florida and did not see proof of local residency.
Based on comments made, it appeared that council members were split 3-2 against the site’s purchase, although Feeney and Velez appeared willing to purchase the site and decide what to do with it later.
After the closed session, Sears agreed to vote for a supplemental environmental study.
Earlier, Calamari defended Option 2 — putting the police department at 95 Linwood Avenue and upgrading facilities at town hall for DPW — as “the best use of the land for all the residents of the town.”
That project would cost a little over $10 million, he said, and cost the average household $80 per year, or $2,400 over a 30-year bond.
Calamari asserted that a developer of “luxury apartments” was eyeing the 95 Linwood site, and noted multistory apartment buildings or “forced overdevelopment” could occur there in the state’s next affordable housing round.
Sears said the original vote to buy the Charlie Brown’s site was because members agreed it would house the DPW. He said he could not support putting the police department there and recommended placing it for sale, and allow it to be developed to help the town meet future affordable housing goals due in 2025.
During the meeting, the board took a spontaneous vote to decide whether to fund the third required environmental study for $16,961, to make sure there were no buried underground storage tanks near the front of the property.
Lisko did not discover such a previous use in its Phase 1 study.
The vote failed 3-2, with Morgan, Cascio and Sears opposing the study, while Feeney and Velez voted in favor.
The council voted 4-1 to later go into closed session to discuss the matter. Only Cascio voted against the closed session.
The third environmental investigation was requested by Poller after he received an email from Hemlock Drive resident Rose Candeletti wondering why the consultant hired by Lisko, the licensed site remediation professional, to perform ground-penetrating radar at 95 Linwood did not scan the front of the property where gas tanks were previously shown.
She noted that an archival photo, circa 1940-1960, which was displayed by resident Bill McAuliffe at a prior public council meeting, showed at least three gas pumps in front of the Washington Grove convenience store that apparently once occupied the site. She asked why the consultant did not scan the property frontage where the tanks appeared.
Poller told council that he was able to extend the due diligence period for purchasing the property until July 18, giving members breathing room to decide whether to approve the property purchase.
Previously, council had only until June 14, the end of its due diligence period, to decide whether to approve the purchase.
Poller and Candeletti disagreed over who was responsible for determining what areas at the site were to be scanned. Poller said Lisko was in charge of determining that but Candeletti argued that McAuliffe had shown a photo displaying gas pumps onsite and that both officials should have been aware of their relevance to the prior search for underground storage tanks.
If the third environmental investigation to scan the property front occurs, Poller said that may occur on June 9 and that Lisko would provide timely results with a report due on June 17.