PARSIPPANY — Over a hundred residents from Parsippany gathered at the main branch of the Parsippany Public Library on Saturday, April 6 to interact with Councilman Justin Musella on various local hot-button issues — ranging from overdevelopment in the township to traffic congestion overburdening Lake Parsippany, to a much-needed solution to the arduous, drawn-out permitting process.
Residents actively participated during the extensive interactive question-and-answer session with many in the audience noting the constructive dialogue empowered them and fostered a sense of community involvement among attendees.
Musella has been holding monthly “office hours” with residents since his election to the Township Council in 2021. Now Musella is offering residents a more expansive platform to express their opinions and grievances in detail and collaborate on potential solutions. The conversational format of Musella’s town hall is in stark contrast to the traditional township council format that only allows residents five minutes of speaking time without any response from or dialogue with township officials. Many times, the five-minute public speaking time at council meetings is arbitrarily shortened by the sitting Council President, as was the case during many controversial township proposals including the highly controversial PILOT projects.
Parsippany Board of Education members were on hand to speak about their ongoing feud with the mayor regarding the impact of the PILOTs on their funding. Board Member Tim Berrios addressed the crowd saying, “Unfortunately the Mayor continues to ignore the Board of Education and has not responded to our many attempts to meet.” Musella emphasized that a collaborative approach to the Board of Education would bring many benefits to the taxpayers of the town as “There are millions of dollars in savings by sharing services and the only people the mayor is hurting by punching down at the Board of Education are the working families of the town.” Musella was also asked for some advice for blue-collar municipal workers on getting a fair contract from Mayor Barberio, to which he quipped “They should hire John Inglesino as their attorney since we all know the magic he can work on the (mayor’s) administration.”
Assemblyman Brian Bergen joined Musella’s town hall offering residents additional insight into how state and local governments collaborate on a wide array of matters and how his office’s constituent services help residents navigate around the complex state sub-agencies.
The meeting ended with residents thanking Musella for caring about residents during a time
when other municipal officials avoided answering tough questions. There were also calls from the audience for Musella to run for mayor which was met by a long, robust applause from the crowd.
