Mayor calls for civility at meetings, council replies
HAMILTON >> “Shut the f—up!” a woman shouted twice during the Dec. 18 Hamilton Council meeting, prompting the governing body to abruptly adjourn for the night.
Before the first F-bomb dropped, Council President Anthony Carabelli Jr. banged his gavel in an attempt to restore civility to the rowdy meeting.
Mayor Kelly Yaede viewed a video recording of the blowup and rang in the New Year by demanding Hamilton Council to “regain decorum” in the council chambers.
“After receiving the latest video of a council meeting which needed to be abruptly ended due to offensive and abusive language, I am requesting that the Council majority regain the decorum worthy of the respect our residents deserve,” Yaede said in a press release issued Wednesday, the same day a township official called 9-1-1 during a workplace dispute at the municipal building.
Yaede, a Republican, said council meetings quickly lost civility in 2018, the year when Democrats retook majority
control of town council and launched an investigation into the embattled Hamilton Township Animal Shelter.
“To see what the Council Chambers has turned into over the last year is rather unfortunate,” Yaede said Wednesday in an interview with The Trentonian. “Numerous residents have asked me to intercede. Hamilton residents deserve better. Hamilton Township is better than what I had unfortunately witnessed in that video.”
“I am asking council to bring that very decorum back to the public chambers,” Yaede continued in her interview. “That is indeed
the forum for open public discourse in a professional manner. This is unheard of here in Hamilton Township, and it should not continue.”
Members of Hamilton Council issued a bipartisan statement calling the mayor a “hypocritical” leader for demanding Hamilton Council to regain decorum at a time when the Yaede administration is combating internal friction, namely the jaw-dropping encounter pitting Hamilton Business Administration Dave Kenny and mayoral Chief of Staff Marty Flynn against and Hamilton Chief Financial Officer John Barrett.
“We thank the mayor for her concern on how Council meetings are run but would hope that she gets her own house in order first,” three Democratic councilmen and Republican Councilwoman Ileana Schirmer said Thursday in a joint statement. “We find it hypocritical for the mayor to critique our meetings more than two weeks after-thefact and on the same day a police report is filed against her top two administrators for harassing and intimidating a township director.”
Barrett called 9-1-1 alleging workplace harassment on Wednesday after Kenny and Flynn entered into his CFO offices demanding he turn over his townshipowned laptop computer. Barrett refused to comply and left the municipal building before Hamilton cops arrived on scene to investigate.
Wild meeting
The Dec. 18 Hamilton Council meeting reached its pinnacle of rowdiness around 10 p.m. when Steven Wronko, a resident of Spotswood Borough in Middlesex County, was delivering public comments. Despite being an outsider, Wronko has become one of the biggest critics of the Yaede administration. He inserted himself into Hamilton’s political discourse ever since the New Jersey Department of Health conducted a surprise inspection of the Hamilton Township Animal Shelter last summer and found numerous deficiencies that forced the administration into corrective action.
At the Hamilton Council meeting on Aug. 21, 2018, Wronko said he was banned from the Hamilton Township and Mayor Kelly Yaede Facebook pages and stated it was a violation of the First Amendment. He asked about the disposal method of animal carcasses and was advised that they are handled by the current waste disposal company contracted with the township, according to the minutes of that meeting.
Wronko brought that same energy to the Dec. 18 Hamilton Council meeting, grilling the business administrator over the animal shelter and demanding answers to his questions. Things quickly devolved into bedlam when Wronko used the phrase “pinko commies.”
“Let’s maintain the decorum,” Carabelli said in his final meeting as 2018 council president, banging his gavel for good measure.
Then the F-bombs started flying, forcing Hamilton Council to end the meeting abruptly.
In the days following the meeting, Yaede suggested a solution that would place
non-Hamilton residents like Wronko at the back of the line for public comments at Hamilton Council meetings.
“I am asking that during the public comment portion of Council meetings our township taxpaying residents be given the opportunity to address Council before non-residents,” Yaede said in the press release she issued Wednesday. “I want our residents to feel comfortable speaking about their concerns without interference from outsiders with an agenda.”
“As a former councilmember,” Yaede added, “my colleagues and I never had this type of atmosphere nor would we have allowed it.”
Last month’s double F-bomb may have represented a new low, but Hamilton Council meetings have previously ventured into rowdiness during Yaede’s political career. For example, outspoken Hamilton resident Vinnie Capodanno, a Democrat, in 2009 famously made a controversial public statement to then-Council President Yaede, telling her she was “sitting up there on your perch” for attempting to maintain order at a raucous council meeting.
The current Hamilton Council of 2019 is led by new Democratic Council President Jeff Martin, Democratic Council Vice President Rick Tighe and Democratic Councilman Carabelli. The Republicans on the governing body are Schirmer and Councilman Ralph Mastrangelo, who engaged in a sideshow verbal tiff against Hamilton alt-GOP member David Henderson at the council meeting of Aug. 21, 2018.
The Dec. 18 council meeting shall be remembered for its wild ending, but the Democratic trio of Martin, Tighe and Carabelli joined forces with Schirmer to make a bipartisan statement chastising Yaede over her recent press release on the topic.
“Sadly, the mayor has chosen to communicate with Council through the media instead of calling us or coming to a Council meeting to address her concerns,” the four councilmembers said in their joint statement Thursday. “In the spirit of openness, we are issuing an invitation to the mayor to come to any/all Council meetings so she can address her concerns to us directly. Instead of avoiding the Council, we hope she will take us up on this offer.”
Yaede issued her press release on Wednesday about two hours before Hamilton Council held its first meeting of 2019.
“Had the mayor come to our Council meeting on Jan. 2,” the four councilmembers said, “she would have seen the reforms we put in place encouraged and led to a respectful, open public meeting.”
Last March, Hamilton Municipal Clerk Eileen Gore emailed then-Council President Carabelli requesting a police presence at all Hamilton Council meetings going forward. “I have great concern about my personal safety and security as well as for my staff at such meetings,” she said, “especially in today’s climate.”
Capodanno, a former township councilman, said Hamilton Council meetings should never feature a full-time municipal police presence. “To have a cop at the council meeting full time,” he said Saturday, “people don’t like that.”