Board of Commissioners: August 18, 2026

Meeting

• Body: Township of Nutley Board of Commissioners
• When: Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Called to order 7:09 PM, adjourned 8:01 PM.
• Where: Parks & Recreation, Room 201, 44 Park Avenue. Not the Commission Chambers at 1 Kennedy Drive, which have been under renovation since February 6, 2026.
• Present: Commissioner Thomas J. Evans, Commissioner Joseph P. Scarpelli, Mayor John V. Kelly III. Commissioner Mauro G. Tucci and Commissioner Alphonse Petracco were both recorded absent excused. 🟢 Roll call, 0:46
• Also present: Township Attorney Bruno; Municipal Clerk Eleni Pettas.
• Video: township recording, 52 minutes · Agenda: PDF

Three of five commissioners is a quorum and a majority, so everything below passed lawfully on a 3–0 vote. It is worth knowing all the same: the two absent commissioners' own items were read by those present — Commissioner Evans read Commissioner Tucci's three resolutions, and Commissioner Scarpelli read both Commissioner Petracco's ordinance and his resolution.

TL;DR

• Six residents spent half the meeting pressing the board on the ON3 data center. The township named its redevelopment counsel for the first time, repeated that no application has been filed, and said it is building a "mechanism" to brief residents — but would not commit to a town hall or a date. 🟢
• The township attorney stopped the mayor from answering when a resident asked whether conversations with the developer are ongoing. 🟢 28:48
• Ordinance 3621, the Fire Chief's salary, was not on the agenda and was not heard. It was tabled on August 4 and did not return. 🟢
• Ordinance 3623 was adopted with an incoherent time window. The filed text limits Essex Street parking "8:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m." — as adopted, not as introduced. 🔵
• $125,000 was appropriated to clean up diesel-contaminated soil behind the Public Safety Building, with NJDEP reporting. Introduced August 18; public hearing September 1. 🟢
• The board approved a $4,971,815.46 bill list and a $147,974.38 sound system for the Commission Chambers renovation. 🟢

Key decisions and votes

Every vote below was 3–0: Evans, Scarpelli, Kelly. No item drew any public comment during its hearing — the agenda-items comment period drew no speakers at all 3:54.

Ordinances adopted

Ordinance 3620 — salaries of non-union officers and employees, effective January 1, 2026. Read by Mayor Kelly on behalf of the whole board, moved as written, no discussion. Public hearing opened and closed with no speakers. 🟢 10:00 · Ordinance 3620

Ordinance 3622 — zoning: decks, and off-premises parking. 🟢 10:51 · Ordinance 3622

Two changes ride in one ordinance, and Commissioner Evans explained the reasoning for both.

The substantive one deletes the off-premises automobile parking lot provisions from five business districts — B-1 (§ 700-15.M), B-2 (§ 700-16.L), B-3 (§ 700-17.N), B-3A (§ 700-18.E) and B-4 (§ 700-19.D). Those provisions let a business satisfy its off-street parking requirement using a lot on someone else's property. Evans said the problem is durability:

"The ability to make sure that that parking always exists after they receive approval is becoming problematic. So maybe a next door business — that's sure, but then maybe that business was sold, parking is then eliminated, it becomes a problem." 🟢 11:18

The practical effect: a business that cannot park on its own lot now needs a use variance from the Board of Adjustment rather than an administrative approval. Evans said such cases have been "few... over the years."

The second change adds § 700-67E(7): "No deck shall be constructed more than two feet above the highest finished first floor of any building or structure, unless permitted elsewhere in the Zoning Ordinance." Evans described this as clarifying that "putting a balcony on a second story of a property is not something that has been permitted, but the zoning code wasn't clear." 🟡 The filed text regulates decks by height above the first floor, which is not quite the same thing as second-story balconies; the ordinance text governs.

Ordinance 3623 — 15-minute parking, south side of Essex Street, from Franklin Avenue east for 105 feet. Adopted with no discussion and no public comment. 🟢 12:39 · Ordinance 3623

🔵 The adopted text sets the hours as "8:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m." That is not a window. This was flagged when the ordinance was introduced on August 4, and the filed version carrying the August 18 public hearing date still reads the same way. Commissioner Scarpelli read it aloud as "from 8:00 to 6:00 p.m." 13:10, which does not resolve it either. Almost certainly 8:00 a.m. was intended. Until the codified version or a corrective ordinance says so, what is on the books is incoherent. We have asked the Municipal Clerk.

Ordinances introduced — public hearings September 1

Ordinance 3624 — four-way stop at Nutley Avenue and Whitford Avenue. Commissioner Scarpelli said the intersection "has been studied extensively now by engineering and the public safety department, and we feel this is the best way to make that intersection safer." 🟢 7:33 · Ordinance 3624

Ordinance 3625 — $125,000 to remediate diesel-contaminated soil behind the Public Safety Building, 224 Chestnut Street. 🟢 8:33 · Ordinance 3625

The ordinance appropriates $125,000 from the Capital Improvement Fund "to remediate diesel fuel contaminated soil behind the Public Safety Building, including restoration, NJDEP reporting, project management and all necessary work." Commissioner Evans explained the origin:

"This is in an area where formerly existed a diesel generator, which has now been upgraded to a natural gas generator." 🟢 8:51

He tied it to a wider standby-power upgrade paid for with American Rescue Plan money — generators for Town Hall, Public Safety, and the Parks & Recreation building, the last of which "can now be used as a warming center in the event of an emergency."

Resolutions — all adopted 3–0

Sourced to the adopted resolutions PDF. The $147,974.38 sound system is the largest single award and is funded from capital account C0455365401, certified by the CFO.

Bill list

$4,971,815.46, adopted 3–0. 🟢 2:42 · Bill list

Not heard: Ordinance 3621

🟢 Ordinance 3621, setting the Fire Chief's salary at $194,031–$225,000, was not on the August 18 agenda and was not taken up. The August 4 agenda marked it "(TABLED)" while the filed ordinance still carried an August 18 public hearing date — that conflict is now resolved in favor of the tabling. It is absent from the August 18 agenda, absent from the meeting packet, and never mentioned on the recording. 🔵 When, or whether, it returns is unanswered.

Notable discussion

The township named its redevelopment counsel

Asked directly by a resident who they are, Mayor Kelly named the team for the first time on the record 🟢 25:38:

• Josh Zelinsky, of O'Toole Scrivo
• Derek Orth, of Inglesino Taylor
• working with the township planner, Fran Reiner of FAR Planning

That last name connects a dot. On August 4 the board adopted Resolution 210-26, a professional services agreement with FAR Planning for "land use evaluation and planning services," without the resolution saying what for. FAR Planning is now identified as working alongside redevelopment counsel on the ON3 site. 🟡

(Spellings of counsel's names are taken from the auto-captions and will be corrected against the minutes.)

"No application currently pending"

Mayor Kelly opened the meeting by acknowledging the room 🟢 6:18:

"I see we have a number of people here who are generally usually interested in the redevelopment on the ON3 Roche site. We are working with our redevelopment counsel on a mechanism to provide you with additional information... it's still very preliminary, so I don't have much to share for you, but I do want to assure you that that is in progress."

He repeated through the evening that no application has been filed 27:57, that the township is "no closer than previously discussed at any of our previous meetings" 31:37, and — asked whether a site application might land within 30 days — 🟢 31:52:

"Not that I'm aware of. Of course anything can — they could just drop something in our lap, but I'm not aware of something being that close."

The attorney stopped the mayor from answering

The sharpest moment of the night. Resident Trish Meleski asked whether there had been recent conversations between the developer and the board about whether a plan conforms to the redevelopment plan — a step she said section 2.1 of the settlement agreement requires before any site plan — "or has it been radio silence?"

The mayor began to answer. Township Attorney Bruno cut in 🟢 28:48:

"Mayor, I'm going to ask you not to engage."

He continued that the questions are "part of a bigger conversation," that "this is not something that it would be beneficial for anybody up here right now to engage in in light of where we are in terms of a settlement agreement, litigation, etc.," and that the answers "are probably going to come from redevelopment counsel and not the folks that are sitting up here."

Meleski pressed: "If there are conversations that are ongoing, that suggests that we're closer to having a site plan, and that's what we're trying to judge." Bruno: "I just don't want anybody to speak to what conversations are ongoing." 🟢 29:37

🔵 Whether any such conversations have occurred is unanswered. It is the cleanest open question of the meeting, and section 2.1 of the settlement agreement is the document that would settle what they would mean.

How much can the Planning Board actually change?

Mayor Kelly described the route any application would take: the code and construction office must first deem it complete; only then does it reach the Planning Board, which would hold hearings "from meeting to meeting" over "several months." The township would retain outside experts in anything beyond its own competence — "acoustics, drainage, water, whatever needs to be studied" — and the public would be able to question them. 🟢 32:01, 36:09

He also noted that he and Commissioner Scarpelli both sit on the Planning Board. 🟢 32:48

Meleski challenged the framing directly 🟢 33:42:

"If the parameters are already in the redevelopment agreement, then the Planning Board, per the redevelopment agreement, can't really do anything about that. So we just have to be careful how we talk about this, because on one hand we're trying to make it sound like there's a lot of latitude that sits in the hands of the Planning Board. But that's not necessarily 100% accurate."

Kelly conceded the point in part: the redevelopment agreement "admittedly would restrict some of what the Planning Board can do," but argued that on "health, welfare, and safety of the community, there is no restrictions on what the Planning Board can impose." Asked whether he meant the agreement's adverse-consequences clause, he said he would have to look. 🔵 34:37

The volunteer data-center expert

Resident Rob Garber asked about a data-center expert he understood the township to be working with: volunteer or retainer? Attorney Bruno 🟢 37:55:

"The person as I understand it has volunteered their time with our experts to essentially share information from other states, model ordinances, et cetera. The person did not want to be retained... they are a resident and they are seemingly very well-intentioned."

He said the township has made "a number of attempts" to reach others: "It has seemed to be a very insular community with a lot of people that are unwilling to participate and be helpful. So we continue those efforts, but I can't tell you that we will have someone." 🟢

Garber: "So our goal is to get a data center expert on payroll, employed by the [township], in whatever manner." Bruno: "Sure." 🔵 No commitment or timeline followed.

Eminent domain, and two houses

Garber raised section 2.3 of the settlement agreement, which he said allows the township to be compelled to exercise eminent domain if homeowners near the site decline to sell and the developer deems the acquisition necessary 🟢 39:10:

"Why would we do that, and how is that in the welfare of the community — for the township to essentially act as an arm of the developer?"

Mayor Kelly said the provision "pertains to only two houses that would impede access to the site," called it "ultimately a worst-case scenario," and described safeguards requiring the developer to show "significant steps" at negotiation first. Asked why the township agreed to the role at all, he traced it to the origin of the settlement 🟢 40:49:

"The impetus for this settlement agreement was a four-year litigation with the developer to prevent a truck terminal from coming into that site."

Bruno added that eminent domain "is nothing that anybody on this board would ever arrive at or come to lightly. The litigation and what brought us to this settlement was intense. It was costly... this was a negotiated settlement. It is the best possible answer to that question." 🟢

Later, resident Mordecai Lukens returned to it, saying he lives on Kingsland Street with the proposed substation "right up against my fence," and that the settlement language is broader than the two-house description 🟠 50:04:

"It doesn't say, 'Hey, there's these two properties that are maybe in the way of getting in and out.' It says, if the developer wants to buy a property and the person doesn't want to sell, well, we can look into that mechanism."

He also said the 1915 deed to his Lambert-tract house carries a covenant that no property on the tract may be used for any trade or business "dangerous, noxious, unwholesome, or offensive to neighboring inhabitants," and asked how that sits alongside the eminent domain clause. 🟠

Bruno replied that on his understanding the clause "applies to the two parcels that the mayor outlined," adding "I am not redevelopment counsel, and again, they will be here at some point to answer all these questions in a better way than I can." Asked whether the two-house limit is written anywhere, no citation was given. 🔵 51:37

Public comment

Six residents spoke, every one of them on the ON3 site. Public comment ran from 21:05 to 52:12 — roughly 31 of the meeting's 52 minutes.

Statements of fact by speakers are 🟠 Unconfirmed and attributed to the speaker unless a document confirms them.

Emma Cortese asked the board to follow up on its own statement at the previous meeting that it was "not reluctant in any way to conduct a town hall." She pressed for information "in a synergistic way with the residents, in a timely way, and in a sufficiently definitive way, because once this gets started in terms of development it's going to take off really quickly." She was explicit that she was not alleging bad faith: "it's not in any way to suggest that there has been anything underhanded or duplicitous or covert." She referenced Article 11 constraints in the settlement. 🟢 21:05

Attorney Bruno's answer: "Stay tuned... I promise you that we are working on putting something together to provide as much information as is possible." He emphasized that "all of what has been done has been done in the public setting... every action has already had a public hearing. So nothing is taking place outside of public scrutiny — but we are working on something that would essentially be above and beyond what is required." 🟢 23:06

Mayor Kelly: "The Board of Commissioners is looking to be as transparent as possible on this issue. However, we have to take our guidance from the redevelopment counsel, and so there will be limits as to what we can share and how we can share it." 🟢 25:12

Trish Meleski asked how the township will verify the acoustical study the redevelopment plan requires the developer to provide — "which is obviously extremely important with a data center" — and whether the town will commission its own. 🟢 26:57 That question was not directly answered. 🔵 She also noted the wider context: "We just saw today that even Texas is considering putting a moratorium on data centers. Texas." 🟠 35:00

Rob Garber described what is driving resident anxiety: "Within the settlement agreement, we're just uncertain about what timing is. It makes the agreement seem, at least to us, that once things get rolling, it's a snowball rolling downhill that can't be stopped." 🟢 35:31 After Kelly's account of the multi-month approval process, Garber replied: "Our question will ultimately be, if the terms in the settlement don't apply, why are they there?" 🔵 37:23

Shane Dunn, of the Spring Garden area, said residents "are putting together organizations to kind of rally for responsible development in the town," and raised both the ON3 site and "the trucking depot that's been talked about near Washington" — the 536–544 Washington Avenue application. Describing himself as a consultant doing infrastructure work for environmental reviews, he put on the record 🟠 43:20 that peer-reviewed research shows "substantial environmental costs, electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, noise, pressure on local infrastructure," and that the economic case is "capital intensive, far fewer permanent jobs" than the documentation suggests. He offered to help and asked whether volunteers with subject-matter expertise could assist. Kelly and Bruno both said the information-share mechanism would be the place to start.

🔵 Dunn referred to a "potential 20 to 24 megawatt plan." The banner on the Kingsland Street fence advertises 65 megawatts. Those are very different facilities, and neither figure comes from a filed application. See the 275 Kingsland Street case page.

Joan Rubino asked the board to open its question-gathering to the whole town rather than only to meeting attendees — "Tap into Nutley, any other mechanism you might have... Not everybody is interested in coming to meetings, or they don't have the time." 🟢 46:16 Pressed twice on whether that meant a town-wide meeting, Kelly would not commit: "That's up for debate... we're looking on the best way to reach as many people as possible," adding that "part of the reason why Mr. Bruno's being a little cryptic is we're still working through the legal issues and ramifications." 🟢 48:56

Mordecai Lukens, a Kingsland Street resident of three years, raised the eminent domain provision and the 1915 deed covenant, covered above.

Resident names are transcribed from the auto-captions; spellings will be corrected against the approved minutes.

What's next

• Tuesday, September 1, 2026, 7:00 PM — Board of Commissioners, Parks & Recreation Room 201. Public hearings on Ordinance 3624 (Nutley/Whitford four-way stop) and Ordinance 3625 (the $125,000 soil remediation).
• Wednesday, September 2, 2026 — Planning Board, 536–544 Washington Avenue, adjourned from August 5.
• The "information share mechanism" — repeatedly promised, with no date, no format and no commitment that it will be a public town hall.

Open questions

These are what the next records requests and the next meeting should target.

• 🔵 Have there been conversations between the developer and the board about whether a plan conforms to the redevelopment plan, as section 2.1 of the settlement agreement contemplates? The township attorney stopped the mayor from answering.
• 🔵 What is the "mechanism," and will it be a town hall? No date, no format, no commitment.
• 🔵 Will the township commission its own acoustical study, or rely on the developer's?
• 🔵 Will the township retain a paid data-center expert? It currently relies on one unnamed resident volunteer who declined to be retained.
• 🔵 Is the eminent domain provision limited to two properties in writing, and where? The township described it that way; a resident reading the same clause disagrees.
• 🔵 65 MW or 20–24 MW? The fence banner and a resident's account differ by a factor of three.
• 🔵 Do the Essex Street parking hours read 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. anywhere in the adopted or codified text? As filed, they do not.
• 🔵 Does any pending application rely on the off-premises parking provisions Ordinance 3622 repeals?
• 🔵 Will Ordinance 3621, the Fire Chief salary, return to an agenda?

Carried over from August 4, for context

Adopted at the previous meeting and relevant to the development beat:

• Resolution 203-26 conditionally designated ORO NJ LLC as redeveloper of Block 3100, Lot 38 (507 Franklin Avenue, formerly Bella Luce) for 120 days from August 4 — through roughly December 2, 2026 — to present a concept plan and potentially negotiate a redevelopment agreement. The designation terminates automatically at the end of that window. Source: August 4 resolutions
• Resolution 210-26 authorized a professional services agreement with FAR Planning for land use evaluation and planning services. As of this meeting, FAR Planning's Fran Reiner is identified as the township planner working with redevelopment counsel on ON3. Source: August 4 resolutions