Man arrested at Long Branch City Council meeting

By Neil Schulman
Long Branch — A man was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct on Tuesday night after disrupting a city council meeting.

Long Branch Policemen put handcuffs on resident Vincent LePore after an outbreak at the Long Branch Council meeting Tuesday night.

Vincent LePore of Ocean Terrace was arrested after he refused to comply with a police request to stop shouting during the meeting. He was released on a summons.

The day after the meeting, City Administrator Howard Woolley said he thought the police’s action were “an appropriate response” to the situation. While some residents say that the governing body is not paying attention to the people, several officials called what was taking place there nonsense.

The incident that prompted  LePore’s removal was when council refused to give city resident  Avery Grant more time than the five minutes granted to speak. As LePore was being escorted out of the council meeting room, several people in the audience also got up to leave the meeting, unhappy with council’s actions.

But LePore, a frequent critic of the governing body (he filed a suit last year against the city and several of its employees) had already gotten into arguments with council members at the meeting.

Earlier in the meeting, council voted on its annual ordinance setting salary ranges for city employees for 2016. During the public comment portion of that ordinance, LePore said that the governing body was giving itself a raise, because the city’s CFO had said the new ordinance reflected a 2 percent salary increase.

Councilman Michael Sirianni said this was nonsense, and anyone with some education could see that.

The governing body does not get a pay increase in this year’s ordinance. It says the mayor will receive $8,000 this year, and each of the five council members $3,500 each. In the 2015 salary ordinance, it was the same.

Nor have they received an increase in a long time. It was also the same in the 2007 ordinance — the earliest council agendas have been put online — and it had been the same for many years before that too.

Sirianni complained that LePore frequently takes unfair shots at the governing body, making untrue statements. “There’s only so much I can abide. The nonsense that has been spewed,” he said.

Later in the meeting, during a period requesting public comments, Grant, Executive Director of the Concerned Citizens Coalition, asked council if they would consider putting a plaque over a bridge on Seaview Avenue “commending the successful leadership of our deceased chairpersons,” Sharmaine Patterson and Julia Wheeler.

Grant, who presented copies of his letter with the request to council members, said the Coalition, begun in 2002, helped organize the fight to clean up coal tar contaminants in the area caused by the former gasification plant, getting the state to fund the remediation.
During the public participation portion, speakers have five minutes, and there’s been a time limit for over a decade. When Grant was given a one minute notification, he complained.

“I think it’s important we concern ourselves with the citizens,” he said, adding council was more concerned with timekeeping than the people.

Council members said they did have the letter with the information, and could still consider what  he was asking, but Grant said he wanted to be heard.

When Grant wouldn’t sit down after his time was up, Public Safety Director Jason Roebuck approached the podium and asked him to sit down.

Around that time, LePore began speaking in the audience, saying that the council meeting had been shut down. He was asked to be quiet, and refused.

Roebuck took him from the council chambers, but LePore continued to yell in the hallway. At that point, Roebuck said he was placing him under arrest and radioed for officers to come.

Due to the disruption, council made a motion to close the public portion, though it took a couple of minutes and several council members seemed uncertain of what was happening.
The meeting quickly concluded afterward, with council members not happy about what had happened.

“I have nothing to say except this is nonsense,” Councilwoman Joy Bastelli said to a mostly empty room.

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On Wednesday, Grant told The Link that he believes council doesn’t pay enough attention to the people.

“My last comment was they’re more concerned about the clock… and Pier Village rather than the community and their needs,” Grant said. He said, as an example, he had just been told that the city was cancelling the Father’s Day Car Show this year. (Last year, city officials said it was a difficult event to staff, and the original reason – to draw people to the oceanfront – seemed less important due to the popularity of the beaches in recent years.)
Grant said when he moved to Long Branch in 1967, what appealed to him was how many events were going on – like how he could be the captain of a bocce league. Today, he feels there’s less interest.

“Council and the mayor need to understand,” he said.

Also on Wednesday morning, Woolley told The Link he had not seen anything like this at a public meeting for a long time. “It takes me back 40 years.”

He believes that what happened was justified, since the meeting couldn’t be conducted with how LePore was acting.

“He was out of control. The Director of Public Safety asked him to stop screaming,” Woolley said.

Woolley said Long Branch listens to the people, but it needs the procedures to keep the meetings orderly.

“There’s a place for public participation, and I think it’s always been allowed,” he said. “People have said some outrageous things – but it has to be said in a way you can run a meeting.”