Westlake wins reimbursement for services
Homeowners association will be repaid $279,000
BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer

Jackson officials have settled the township’s debt with residents of the Westlake adult community for more than a quarter million dollars. That is the amount owed in reimbursement from 2000-05 for unused municipal services.

Under the terms of an agreement provided by Township Attorney Kevin Starkey, a total of $279,112 will be remitted in installment payments to Westlake Master Association Inc. to cover reimbursement of street lighting and snow removal that residents paid for through dues to their homeowners association as well as in their property tax payments to the township.

Of the total payment, a sum of $58,513 was agreed to for outstanding snow removal costs through Dec. 31, 2005. The issue of street lighting was also resolved and constituted the greater portion of reimbursement fees. Jackson will pay $220,599 for the outstanding cost of street lighting through Dec. 31, 2005.

The reimbursement contract between the township and Westlake Master Association Inc. will automatically renew annually unless the township provides 60 days notice it will not. However, according to the payment schedule established for reimbursement of street lighting and snow removal from 2000-05, the township will still be making payments on the five-year agreement while it is making new payments for 2006 and 2007.

A payment of $150,000 will be made on March 1, 2006; a payment for $50,000 will be made on Sept. 1, 2006; and a final payment of $79,112 will be made on Sept. 1, 2007.

Although the homeowners association of Westlake was formed in 2000, no reimbursement agreement had been reached with the township for electricity of street lights or snow removal. Westlake homeowners association attorney Sam McNulty said in August that a good faith payment of $50,000 was made by the township in 2003 while negotiations were ongoing to work out a formula for reimbursement.

McNulty said that when current Township Administrator Andrew J. Salerno took over from former Township Administrator Frank Kennedy, he failed to meet specified deadlines and a promised audit was never completed until months later.

“We had a payment in 2003 and thought we would get information from the town and we did not,” McNulty said. “Mr. Salerno asked for additional time, which we readily gave him. Despite promises that were made ... he missed the deadline. We asked again and again and didn’t get the information. When the audit wasn’t completed, we found out about the pending suit with Sixty Acre Reserve and filed suit [too].”

Sixty Acre Reserve’s homeowner association is not seeking reimbursement for street lighting electricity, only reimbursement for snow and ice removal, according to attorney Bruce Freeman, who spoke to the Tri-Town News last summer.

Salerno suspended all reimbursements to developments that had an agreement with the township shortly after beginning his employment with Jackson on Oct. 12. He said he thought Jackson had been paying too much in reimbursement to the developments and that he was seeking a fair amount under the Kelly law, which was passed in 1990.

Freeman said state Superior Court Judge Eugene Serpentelli, sitting in Toms River, had instructed the parties to attempt to negotiate a settlement to their dispute.

Not all affected homeowners associations litigated to resolve the payment impasse to developments they represented. Winding Ways residents came to a Township Committee meeting in August to demand payment. Members of the governing body voted to provide payment at the 2004 rate and did the same for the developments of Three Pence Brook, Meadowbrook Village, Crystal Brook and Four Seasons at Metedeconk.

According to Township Committeeman Mark Seda, the settlement with the Westlake homeowners association will establish a formula for renegotiating all the developments’ agreements as well as a lesson for Jackson in good government.

“[The township] took something that could have been so easily fixed and made it into a nightmare for us and the senior community,” Seda said on Feb. 6. “We forced litigation for a year and all we did was upset residents and not reimburse anybody. That’s government working in a negative vacuum. This [agreement] will set the [right] precedent and [provide a] road map for the rest of the community.”