Official denies she violated Sunshine Act

At Monday's borough council meeting, West Newton Councilwoman Mary Popovich denied that she held a "secret meeting" and asked council to adopt a code of conduct.

At issue were questions that Mayor Arthur Berarducci had raised at the February meeting concerning Popovich inviting the borough's part-time police officers to her home.

Popovich clarified that the purpose was to introduce herself as a new member of council and as their committee liaison, and to listen to their concerns.

She also defined the Sunshine Act as a pre-arranged meeting by an agency "with a quorum of members held for the purpose of deliberating agency business or taking official action."

"I did not violate the Sunshine Act," said Popovich, who added that she "will not tolerate any more personal or slanderous acts by any elected official of the borough in a public or executive session."

She called for a code of conduct that would require the removal of any "elected official or lay public" who uses "profanity, personal threats and character attacks." Council took no action on her recommendation.

In other business, Berarducci and Councilman David Martinelli disagreed on enforcing the borough's rules on closing parks at dark, and on parking in front of churches.

Berarducci said he would prefer seeing youngsters hanging out at the park after dark "where they can be seen" rather than having the police "chase them around town" until the 10 p.m. curfew.

"We either enforce the law, or we don't enforce the law," Martinelli said.

He then questioned why someone received a parking ticket on Ash Wednesday, as it's borough policy to not enforce parking laws during church services.

Berarducci said that there was no service on Ash Wednesday and that people could go to the church all day.