ROSELLE, NJ — A lawsuit intended to halt a proposed $59 million school, library and recreation project in the borough will proceed despite the county freeholders cancelling its bond guarantees for the project.
Anthony Esposito, a former school board member, said he will continue to pursue action against multiple agencies, including the county, Roselle Borough Council and school board to halt the Roselle Mind and Body Complex project.
“I’m going to go forward with the lawsuit,” Esposito, who filed his suit in August, said in a Jan. 31 phone interview. “I need to know all the parties in the lawsuit are withdrawing before I withdraw the lawsuit. “
A Dec. 21 ordinance passed by the Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders, which was obtained by LocalSource through an open public records request, cancelled unissued bond balances remaining in the county’s guarantee. It specifically cancelled the $59 million that was assured in bonds from the Union County Improvement Authority in 2016.
A Superior Court judge on Dec. 19 rejected a motion to dismiss Esposito’s suit and ruled it could move forward. Esposito claimed that the project was based on a lease agreement between the school board and borough that required the municipality to secure financing for the project in 2015.
The freeholders didn’t approve the issuance of bonds from the UCIA for the project until September 2016. The complicated lease, which involves multiple agencies, has been amended several times since then.
Esposito inquired about the status of the bonds at a Jan. 25 freeholders meeting. In response, Union County Department of Finance Director Bibi Taylor pointed to the freeholders’ resolution from December that had received little notice.
“The guaranteed ordinance that was adopted in September of 2016 was effectively rendered moot because the appropriation that was authorized was cancelled at the end of December 2017,” Taylor said at the meeting. “There was a cancellation resolution that the board adopted. So there’s no funding authorization allowed. And without that full authorization, that ordinance has no effect.”
The freeholders also pulled a proposed ordinance that would have guaranteed $24 million in bonds for the early childhood learning center portion of the project at the Dec. 21 meeting, county spokesman Sebastian D’Elia previously said.
When asked if the borough would purse any aspect of the project in the wake of the Superior Court judge’s decision to let the suit go forward, Roselle spokesman Jonathan Jaffe said there was “nothing new at this time.”
Local residents convened for multiple meetings of the freeholders, council and school board last year to discuss their concerns about the potential tax increase the project could bring to the borough.
A preliminary analysis from the UCIA, which is also named in the suit, said residential taxes could increase by nearly $500 per household for the project, when not considering offsets brought in from new developments in the borough. Another projection by the school board’s auditor and UCIA predicted an annual incremental increase that would reach $190 by 2047.