‘I’m not your mommy’

Dissolution of the Cultural & Heritage Committee will proceed, the Middlesex Borough Council has decided, but that outcome did not happen quietly.

Mayor Jack Mikołajczyk and the committee’s liaison, Councilman Jeremiah Carnes, engaged in a several-minute exchange about the coming reassignment of the group’s responsibilities at the governing body’s Tuesday, Feb. 13 meeting.

It was a verbal back-and-forth between elected officials that is rarely witnessed at public meetings.

By a 4-2 vote, the council concurred that C&H should have its duties split up between the library’s Board of Trustees and Recreation Committee. Carnes and Councilman Martin Quinn opposed the move.

Carnes questioned the process used and why Mikolajczyk did not interview sitting committee members before suggesting the breakup last month.

Mikolajczyk countered by reminding Carnes that his council colleagues had waited several months for an explanation from him regarding five C&H resignations over a two-month period last fall. Carnes has been the council’s liaison to the committee since its formation several years ago.

At one point, Carnes referred to the process as “super shady” asserting that a committee change should require two public readings in ordinance form. Borough Attorney Chris Corsini said he would determine what is required administratively to properly make the change, and it might indeed require an ordinance amendment.

Mikolajczyk, however, was adamant that the splitting of C&H’s duties among other groups is the right move.

“More people have left (the committee) than stayed, for whatever reason,” said Mikolajczyk. “I’m not pointing at anyone in particular to say they’re the cause of it. The way it’s working now is not working, not working at all.”

Answering Carnes’ protestations, Mikołajczyk told him at one point, “I’m not your mommy.”

Carnes was absent from several meetings last fall as the council awaited an explanation for the C&H departures. When none was forthcoming, Mikolajczyk interviewed seven former members and announced his conclusion and suggestion on Jan. 23.

During that meeting’s public comments, former C&H member Bob Edwards criticized Carnes’ leadership of the committee. Carnes did not respond then, but at this week’s meeting said Edwards’ points “were just not true.”

“I’m always open to a conversation, which nobody has done,” Carnes said, adding, “It is what it is, at this point.”

But Carnes again raised the issue of lack of outreach to current C&H members, prompting the back-and-forth with the mayor.

Mikolajczyk told Carnes it should have been his job, as liaison, to conduct interviews and provide an explanation to colleagues for the series of resignations.

“You’ve had four months to do it,” the mayor said. 

Carnes claimed the C&H split up was “done in an unethical and un-transparent way.” He added, “‘All of a sudden there’s consensus – let’s get this guy out of here.”

Carnes asserted it was “a fair request” to ask that current C&H members be interviewed.

“You’re sitting there taking the easy way out,” Mikolajczyk said “Where have you been the last couple weeks? Where were you the last few months?” 

“I don’t know why you’re saying I’m taking the easy way out,” Carnes replied. “It’s not easy to talk about this in public.”

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