School Board Elections; Aberdeen Twp Council Meeting Set for Tues 17th

As I wrote in a recent blog article, Aberdeen-Matawan school board elections are approaching. The deadline for submitting nominating petitions is 2 March. While the deadline for amendments to challenged petitions is 8 March, that is a Sunday so petitions are actually due by close of business Friday 6 March. Other filing dates are available on this page. Elections are on 21 April.

I just received the agenda for the next regular meeting of Aberdeen Township Council, which will be held on Tuesday 17 February immediately following the workshop meeting scheduled for 7 pm.

• At the regular meeting there will be the first reading of an ordinance (5-2009) allowing the council to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits, followed by the first reading of an ordinance (6-2009) related to township salaries.
  
• I have an old agenda for the 3 February public meeting and these same ordinances were to have been introduced at that meeting. Next meeting will be 3 March.
• Ten items considered routine will be voted upon at once as part of a consent agenda.
  
• One of the ten items is related to water allocation diversion rights and a NJDEP contract. After a bit of quick research I found that we have been in Critical Water Supply Area #1 since 1985 and are under special scrutiny for our water use. Our local water supply is derived from the Potomac-Raritan-Magothy aquifer, one of four red-flagged aquifers in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties. See Northern Water Allocation Permitting and the Bureau of Water Allocation for further details about the state program. Matawan has a useful page on water quality and supply. Aberdeen's water department page is rather limited.