Update: This meeting is cancelled. The township clerk says on the morning of June 2, “Please note that there was an issue with the publication of this meeting for this evening and the meeting needs to be cancelled. The topic of 95 Linwood Ave. will be on the agenda of June 8.”
TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—Mayor Peter Calamari pressed the Township Council and residents May 27 to support his plan for moving the police department to 95 Linwood Ave. in advance of a special June 2 council meeting where members would consider which option — if any — would best serve the Township and its residents at the soon-to-be-purchased 1.5-acre property.
(The June 2 meeting occurs after Pascack Press’s weekly deadline. Check our website for updates and an updated report in our June 13 edition.)
Calamari took to his mayor’s Facebook page to explain to residents why he believed the Police Department should move to 95 Linwood and the DPW should remain at Town Hall.
That second option — WTPD to 95 Linwood and DPW to stay at Town Hall — would cost an estimated $10,061,000, and cost the average taxpayer $166 more per year over a 30-year bond term, according to figures Calamari released online May 22.
That second option came about following public pushback — from Township and Paramus residents — about siting a noisy, busy DPW facility at the site that might add to area traffic woes and pollution.
Although a number of residents and council members had expressed another alternate option — not purchasing 95 Linwood Ave., the former Charlie Brown’s restaurant — Calamari had not publicly discussed that option.
Also likely up for discussion, said some council members previously, was whether the council should even go through with its prior bonding approved for the $1.35 million purchase of the property.
Council President Desserie Morgan told Pascack Press that given current economic conditions, likely inflation and increased overall cost of living, that it might not be an appropriate time to purchase a $1.35 million property that she said was not needed immediately.
To provide updated information on site conditions, Pascack Press requested via Open Public Records Act requests – and emails to Morgan, Calamari and Township Attorney Ken Poller – that due diligence reports on 95 Linwood Ave. be publicly released prior to the June 2 meeting.
We received no such reports by press time.
Previously, William McAuliffe, a Hemlock Drive homeowner, had shown council members an archival photo of the site with at least three gas pumps outside a former building there and questioned whether gasoline tanks had been removed and whether possible soil contamination exists.
Previously, neither the council nor Poller disclosed that the recently purchased swim club site also required an extra $7,000-plus environmental site investigation following discovery of possibly contaminated “historical fill” on the site’s northwest boundary.
That second environmental report on the swim club was not available in mid-May and we requested it again on May 27. OPRA requires a response within seven business days.
The site’s purchase closed on April 29, while Poller received an email April 1 stating that the possibly contaminated “historic fill” was placed on the swim club site during construction of the nearby Garden State Parkway.
Rose Candeletti, a Hemlock Drive resident, said she was against the purchase of 95 Linwood Ave. The township must decide by June 14 whether it will go through with the purchase by then, the end of a legal 60-day due diligence period that began with the publication of the council-approved $1.35 million bond ordinance. Only councilman Steven Cascio opposed the bond ordinance, with council approving it 4-1.
“We don’t agree that the town should be spending $1.35 million to purchase this property at this time and we would love to have the property remain a restaurant or residential but the mayor is adamant about buying this property,” said Cadeletti.
She said there was “no reason” why the town could not convert the current ambulance building behind Town Hall into a DPW office, although she said the mayor said the building was not large enough. The ambulance corps vehicles will soon move into the Emergency Services Building, now due for a summer move-in.
She said if space was not adequate for the DPW, they could “always go up” by adding onto the ambulance building. “Then they could go back to their four-year plan for the police station,” she said.
She said though neighbors would “welcome” the police department over the DPW at 95 Linwood Ave., she feared that the town would go through with the purchase and end up putting the DPW there.
She also questioned why the township would not release the environmental reports on the property despite her prior requests for them under OPRA. She said she requested the due diligence reports on May 19 and had not received them as of May 31.
“If they were doing everything by the book, they wouldn’t be withholding information from the public,” Candeletti said. She noted that minutes available on the township website were updated through Feb. 7 as of May 31. She questioned the township’s motives in withholding public documents from the public.
She also questioned cost figures and square footage numbers being used for building the DPW facility at Town Hall, alleging that the total costs might be $2 million or more above Calamari’s estimate of $5.2 million.
“I don’t know if they will have enough votes to back out. But I keep praying!” Candeletti told Pascack Press.
The township has not completed traffic studies on either of the two options, either DPW or WTPD, proposed for the site. Township business administrator Robert Tovo said that traffic studies likely start at about $2,500, and no studies have been done despite strong public concerns about traffic.
Resident Paul Imbaratto, a critic of moving DPW to 95 Linwood, said he supported moving the police department there given the need for a modern police facility. He said he thought the mayor’s May 27 Facebook post was “very, very good and very well thought out” and he noted that the township “needs to update its police station” and “needs to do something now.”