9/18/19 Council Meeting

By: Joseph L. Kuchie

Business Administrator
Glenn Skarzynski

SOUTH AMBOY – Multiple residents attended last Wednesday’s council meeting to thank Mayor Fred Henry, Business Administrator Glenn Skarzynski, and the entire city council for quickly addressing the rat problem that was affecting South Amboy.

City officials have been proactive in making sure property owners are keeping their residences clean following reports of rats in the city, and on Wednesday the council passed an ordinance that will give South Amboy better ways to track abandoned properties owners and ensure the properties are being kept clean and tidy.

South Amboy has also been testing a new bulk garbage pick-up plan that allows residents to throw away unlimited amounts of trash one a month rather than limited amounts of trash once a week. Skarzynski reported that the experiment has been very successful, and he hopes to continue with this plan moving forward.

“The rodent situation is completely under control, it’s an ongoing process,” Skarzynski said. “I’m very happy to report that both Jay Elliott from Code and Lee Lloyd from Health have been doing the heavy lifting on this. They are out there every day.”

“My instructions to them are to take whatever steps necessary to clean up properties that owners aren’t handling, and that is inclusive of large tracks of undeveloped land,” he continued. “We’ve identified the owners and we’re moving forward with getting those cleaned up as well.”

Kenneth Feeley
*file photo

Each resident who spoke during the public portion of the council meeting came to the microphone and thanked Mayor Henry and Business Administrator Skarzynski for their dedication to the problem.

“I want to thank Fred and Glenn, thank you very much for coming out last month and addressing the situation with the rodents, I really mean that because I have not seen any since,” Resident Ken Feeley said.

“Glenn, I can’t thank you enough,” Resident Beverly Samuelson said. “it took four years of me complaining and you came along, and you did it…thank you very much.”

Councilman Tom Reilly was also happy to see the abandon properties ordinance get past by the rest of the council.

“You look around the town, there are certain areas that we really need to attack, and abandoned homes are one of them,” Reilly said. “I applaud the rest of the council for introducing that and getting that passed.”

All council members were in attendance for the council meeting. The next city council meeting will be held on October 17th at 7:00 p.m.