Night at the circus

The Firemen’s Carnival opened its week-long run in Middlesex on Monday night. The following evening, the circus performed a one-night stand at the Ronald S. Dobies municipal building.

This circus didn’t have three rings, a ringmaster or dancing bears. It featured a borough councilman firing vague allegations at the municipality’s CFO. In turn, several department heads – including the CFO – claimed the councilman is difficult to work under.

The session included a sometimes dizzying series of statements and counterclaims between the councilman, Jeremiah Carnes, and CFO Caroline Benson. Two other department heads, DPW Superintendent Len Vidal and Library Director Chrissy George later spoke, noting their own prior clashes with Carnes.

Caught in the middle, with ringside seats, were Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk and the rest of the Borough Council.

Carnes and Benson debated the subject matter of an email chain, whether Carnes had truly been excluded from 2024 budget sessions as he alleged, and the circumstances of an item being left out of last year’s capital budget. Vidal later requested that an investigation be launched of Carnes’ interactions with staff.

Carnes concurred, making a motion to launch such an investigation, and it was unanimously approved by the council. But he reconsidered, upon realizing the investigation’s scope wasn’t what he intended. The council then voted unanimously to rescind the original motion.

Borough Attorney Chris Corsini had mentioned the investigation might require the use of a special counsel. He advised Carnes to take time to rethink his motion to launch one, noting he could bring it forward again at a later meeting.

Discussion of the email chain was held publicly at Benson’s request. It occasionally veered into other matters. One of them was that the borough’s former interim administrator apparently had baseless suspicions of forgery by two staff members.

Got all that? Don’t be stressed if you missed it. The circus might be back for an encore performance at a future meeting. 

While Carnes is being given time to rethink his investigation motion, it is unclear where the governing body takes the matter from here. Particularly after he came under fire for a series of resignations last fall from the former Cultural & Heritage Committee, for which he’d served as liaison.

Mikolajczyk ended Tuesday’s more than half-hour discussion after it reached an impasse when no new ground was being covered.

Over the past several decades, it’s highly unlikely that a similar public discussion has been held by any Central Jersey municipal governing body. It was not a shining moment for Middlesex Borough government.

Vidal said he’d been “targeted” by Carnes in the past. “I don’t think it’s good for us to work in this environment,” Vidal said of himself and other borough staff.

George said the council promotes teamwork, but added, “There’s still one individual here who will go around and trash all the department heads.”

George said Carnes had once called her “corrupt” to one of her employees. 

After hearing the comments of Vidal, George and a few other audience members, Carnes replied, “I’m sorry you guys feel that way.”

Although the discussion ended – at least for now – it left lingering questions.

How much longer will the council be engaged in drama with one of its members?

How much time and resources are being sucked away from dealing with more important matters?

If Carnes is truly so difficult to deal with, why did the Middlesex Borough Republican Organization endorse him only two years ago to run for a second term?

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