The Franklin Township Council held its regular meeting on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at 7:00 PM in the Municipal Building Council Chambers. The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation by Councilwoman Crystal Pruitt, followed by roll call. Key items included four proclamations, extensive public testimony regarding the proposed B9 Schoolhouse warehouse development, and unanimous approval of the consent agenda, ordinances, and warrants.
Public comments focused heavily on the proposed B9 Schoolhouse warehouse development near Canal Walk. Key speakers and points:
The Open Public Meeting Act of the State of New Jersey, adequate notice of this work session regular meeting of the Franklin Township Council was made by the posting on the bulletin board in the municipal building. The township website electronically transmitted to the officially designated newspapers, indicating that this work session regular meeting would take place in the municipal building. Council chambers at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 25th, 2023. Thank you. If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for the invocation by Councilman Francois. Hear our supplications and through thy infinite love and mercy, graciously grant us the strength and power in our thoughts and our decisions. Amen. Councilwoman Francois here. Mayor Kramer. Here. Councilman Oni Jaka? Yeah. Councilmember Botasnik. Councilwoman Pruitt. Councilwoman Udin. Councilman Vassanella. Councilman. Well played, Councilman Vassanella. We're now on to proclamations and commendations. I'm going to do them a little bit out of order to accommodate some people. If we could do the days of remembrance for victims of the Holocaust first. So I'll read the proclamation, and then I'm going to ask the rabbi to speak. Whereas the Holocaust was a state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. And whereas Jews were the primary victim of the Holocaust, with six million people murdered, millions of others targeted because of race, ethnicity, physical and developmental disabilities, sexuality, or nationality, Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents also suffered oppression and death under the Nazi tyranny. And whereas the days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust have been set aside for the people of Franklin Township to remember the inhumanity of those who perpetuated the Holocaust as well as to reflect upon the need for respect of all people, and whereas the township of Franklin joins the nation in commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, the survivors and their liberators, and encourages our community to strike out to overcome intolerance and indifference throughout through learning and remembrance. Now therefore I, Philip Kramer, mayor of the Township of Franklin, County of Somerset State of New Jersey, on behalf of the Township Council do hereby proclaim April 16th through 23rd 2023 as days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust in the Township of Franklin and commend its observance to all citizens. Thank you very much. Mayor Kramer, on behalf of Franklin's Jewish community, I expressed my profound appreciation for this proclamation. And thank you also to the members of the Township Council. You may be wondering, or you may not be, why there are two Holocaust Remembrance Days. They chose that date because that was when the Russians liberated the Auschwitz Birkenau death camp. The Knesset, the Parliament of the State of Israel, established a different day, the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, or what we call Yom Hashoa de Hagvura, Holocaust and Heroes Memorial Day. The Knesset chose this date because that is the Hebrew date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on that day, April 19th, 1943. On that day, the Nazis were planning to evacuate the Warsaw ghetto and send everybody en masse to Auschwitz. With a handful of smuggled weapons, the participants in the uprising managed to kill about 150 Nazis, which in itself was miraculous. It gave Jews a precious shred of dignity in the darkest days of the war. The uprising, of course, was a hopeless cause from the start. The participants all knew that. And nearly every Jew who participated was murdered immediately. Nonetheless, the date is symbolically important because it is one of the days that Jews stood up and fought and refused to go like lambs to the slaughter. The uprising gives us a tiny bit of sucor in light of the now clear historical fact that the Allies knew exactly what was happening for years and years and did absolutely nothing. FDR wanted no Jewish refugees, so no refugees were saved. These two Holocaust days, one in January, one in the spring, are very different. The United Nations date in winter remembers Jews whom the Nazis killed as if they were insects. The Jewish Yohashoa Day in the spring remembers not only these victims, but the heroes as well, those who stood up and used their last bit of energy to scream no before dying as martyrs. In the Torah, Exodus chapter 34, verse 6, Moses describes God as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the southern to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. I read that verse, and I often consider God's patience in amazement. The world, in my opinion, does not really deserve such divine patience. I think about the Ten Commandments, and I envision God saying, I said, do not murder.