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[quote="yankee"]Hi all,

Well yesterday was quite the day . It was nice to have Pari Stave with us to represent the council along with Don Patterson, David Cook, John Ritter, Mike Palumbo, Val Ochoa, Mary Demilt, Tony and Lisa Coniglione. We also had a letter from Lisa Beamer and Susan Mavoides faxed over her comments. We sat at the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee meeting for five hours and were the last to speak.  We told Cranbury’s story and the committee was clearly shocked at the impact their bill would make on Cranbury. The chairman of the committee was familiar with our town and said that this was not the intent of the bill. I assured him that we realize this but, it will in effect result in the demise of our town.

The supporters of the bill that were at this meeting all gave me their word on public record and in a room full of people that they will do their best to make changes on the bill to provide a “Release Valve” for model towns like Cranbury who have been compliant with COAH Rules and who can not build large numbers of new units in their towns due to infrastructure restrictions or the like. I held their feet to the fire by asking them again at the end of our very public conversation to ensure that I have their word on following through with this promise. Although they all chuckled, they agreed on record to do their best. ( I know this could all be lip service but I felt it may be the real deal.)

Dave Cook and I worked the room after the meeting broke up. I spoke to   an assemblywoman who is a supporter of the bill. She gave me her card and told me she would help in tracking our progress. She was a mom like me when she got involved in politics and we had a very heartfelt conversation regarding kids, public service and how to get Cranbury out of this mess. She said she will speak to Robert’s about Cranbury’s story.

Another woman on the council, ( I did not get her name) actually came up to me after the meeting hugged and kissed me and told me how terrific we were. I asked her if this RCA ban can be played with or is it a streamrolled done deal. She said it can absolutely be tweaked to help towns like us.

The bill was voted on yesterday and it was passed on a 2-4 vote. It needs to be passed by the Senate to actually go into effect. My hope is that we can have this “Release Valve” added to the bill to allow towns that qualify to conitnue using RCAs.

David Cook is looking into who is in charge of making revisions to the bill before it hits the Senate. We as a town need to then work as a team to tell these people Cranbury’s story via e-mail and regular mail and ask for the release valve to be put into place. I will get back to all of you once we have organized this information.

Our council members and COAH subcommittee are working on pulling this together with me and I have a call into Linda Greenstein already. If you see Kathy Cunningham our townships clerk, give her a hug. She was key in yesterday’s progress.

Another piece of good news….. An assembly person who defended RCAs walked over to speak with John Ritter  after the vote and said that the senate had a bill that was diametrically opposed to Roberts Bill. This may also save us as far as the RCA battle goes.

If you are on my e-mail distribution list, you will be getting this message some time next week. I do not have time to send it out today. I am a little overwhelmed at the moment and my five year has been staring at me for the last half hour asking me to play and wondering who this Aunt COAH person is that I am always on the phone about.  I do not check this forum often but Mike Palumbo telling about some of the postings.

We will get through this with flying colors and tell our kids stories about it when we are older.

J

Kelly Lehman[/quote]

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