Vernon group seeks to change township government structure

Members of Vernon Taxpayers Association are asking residents to sign a petition that would change the township’s government from the current mayor-council form of government to a council-manager form of government.

The group – led by former Vernon Mayor Sally Rinker – contends that under the current system any resident, regardless of experience, can become the town’s leader via the ballot box and there is little recourse if things do not go well.

“A change in town government would switch power from one, the mayor, to five, the council,” Rinker said. “Not only as far as how business is administered but there are other things that matter. In the current form, all department heads and the town attorney serve at the mayor’s pleasure. If we flip it to council-manager, which it was when I served, the council will hire everybody and vote amongst itself to determine mayor and deputy mayor.”

The petition is critical of the way things have been under Mayor Anthony Rossi, including the recent budget process. Rossi, who defeated Rinker and Harry Shortway in the race for mayor in 2023, says the proposed change is unwarranted.

“The mayor is elected on his or her vision for the township and that is what elections are for,” Rossi said. “Under the current system of government, the mayor can be held accountable at the ballot box and we have a business administrator handling the township’s day-to-day operations who can be fired. That is accountability. There is no true form of accountability with the old form of government because that was spread among the five different members of the council who could constantly shift responsibility and that is why we left it.”

Rinker, who says the goal is to submit the required number of signatures to the township clerk in time for the matter to be put on the November ballot, was in office when the change to the current system was made and she was a supporter of the change.

“In 2010, we were in a council-manager partisan form of the Faulkner Act,” Rinker said. “The petition to change it to mayor-council nonpartisan was successful, the matter was put on the ballot and was approved and so what we have today is mayor-council nonpartisan staggered terms elected at large. At the time, we brought in experts in municipal government from Rutgers who said we would know in three election cycles if the change was a success. We are in the fourth election cycle and people are unhappy with one person making the hiring and major decisions and our council hasn’t always been willing to enforce checks and balances.”

If the matter were to be on the ballot and passed in November, Rinker said an election for all five council seats would be held next May and the winners seated in July. Those councilmembers would then choose from themselves a mayor and deputy mayor.

“The change is only for power and control and nothing more as I have a feeling this is about some people not liking the current mayor,” Rossi said. “The [petition] says I proposed a 14 percent tax increase. I would never introduce that type of increase. The CFO ran the numbers and found that in a perfect world a tax increase of that magnitude would enable everything to run smoothly. The budget that was introduced was at 5.9 percent increase and that is what passed.”

The petition can be found on Facebook at Vernon Taxpayers’ Association or Vernontaxpayersassoc.org.