The Township Committee at its regular meeting on Wednesday adopted an ordinance allowing its volunteer boards and committees to boot absentee members.
The vote was 4-0 in favor of the measure, which sets minimum attendence standards for its volunteer boards and committees, such ast the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Adjustment. Committeeman Clinton Hoffman was absent.
The measure requires that volunteer members of municipal panels must attend 65 percent of the scheduled meetings in any calendar year or face expulsion by a two-thirds majority vote by that panel, the ordinance says.
There was no discussion among committee members before the vote.
It is a measure that the committee had been mulling since January, when talk of creating an ordinance surfaced.
Previously, there was no attendance policy in place and members of the governing body said some committees and boards in the past have been unable to meet for want of a quorum.
“This is good common sense,’’ Committeeman Clinton Hoffmain has said. “This is not a conspiracy to get rid of people. If someone truly cannot participate, then there’s a mechanism in place to allow someone else the opportunity to take that spot.”
