There’s little question Belleville Mayor Michael Melham and the township’s planning board attorney, Rose Tubito, have been at odds since she unilaterally decided all future Belleville planning board meetings should be canceled.
Meanwhile, the attorney resigned hours before last week’s planning board meeting via email, after Melham challenged her to provide legal justification for her claim further meetings should be canceled.
“We (the Township Council) did exactly what the planning board attorney requested — to have the council vote to ratify all the mayor’s planning board appointments retroactively,” Melham said. “The Council did just that. However, once that was done, it seems like the goalposts kept moving, in an effort to keep the planning board from doing its job.”
The township’s position remains the municipality has a duly-seated planning board and hearings will proceed as scheduled.
The next regularly scheduled meeting is set for Thursday, June 9.
Efforts to reach Tubito were unsuccessful.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.