Seaside Park council opens due diligence on annexation petition, debates consultants and planner roles

Seaside Park’s Marin Borough Council opened a work session on Aug. 7, 2025, to begin due diligence on a petition filed by South Seaside Park residents seeking annexation, and introduced two related resolutions (225285 and 225286) that the council will consider at its regular meeting. Chair noted the council is gathering input from professionals and legal counsel before any ordinance is drafted.

The chair said one resolution would authorize an RFP to secure outside consultants in specialized areas such as finance, public safety and education, particularly to avoid conflicts from firms that also work for neighboring Berkeley Township. “We’re looking in particular at those professionals … who obviously have a conflict of interest in the Seaside bar,” the chair said, adding that the RFP approach could result in multiple firms, each expert in a narrow area. A separate resolution would retain the borough’s long‑standing planner to perform planning‑board‑type work and draw on prior master‑plan and housing‑element studies.

Mitch Coppelman, a resident who identified himself during public comment, asked how the two proposals differed in scope and whether the borough should issue the RFP first to see whether a single firm could provide an integrated response. “If you put out the request for proposal, you’ll be getting firms who have expertise all the way through,” Coppelman said, urging the council to consider whether one overarching consultant could assemble the full package. The chair responded that the town’s planner has an existing dataset and prior re‑examination work that would be valuable and that the planners’ longstanding relationship and institutional knowledge factored into the decision to retain that planner.

Other public commenters raised similar concerns about process and timing. The chair told residents the council has not set a firm timeline for public hearings or a final decision; the best estimate offered in the session was “probably sometime in fourth quarter,” but no definitive schedule was adopted. Council members emphasized the need to compile robust technical analysis so any decision—whether to accept a petition or draft an ordinance—would not be “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable” and therefore be more defensible against potential legal challenges.

The session also underscored the council’s intent to avoid conflicts of interest in consultant selection and to weigh whether to combine multiple technical consultants under a single lead firm. The chair said criteria for the RFP would include the ability to work with the borough’s planner and manage discrete technical tasks.

The work session concluded with public questions about whether residents would directly vote on annexation. The chair clarified that the mayor and council will first decide whether to draft an ordinance after public hearings, and that either side could later seek judicial review; recent statute changes since prior litigation mean the governing body’s decision must meet current statutory standards. The council then moved for a brief adjournment and voted unanimously to begin the regular meeting.

The council will consider resolutions 225285 and 225286 at its regular meeting; no final action on the annexation petition was taken during the work session.