Clerk's Office Moving to New Building Friday

The transition from the old Town Hall on Preventorium Road to the new Municipal Complex on Route 9 will take a big step forward today as crews move the clerk's office into its new home.

According to an email from Township Manager Helene Schlegel as of Friday Township Clerk Penny Wollman's staff will move to the new building located at 4567 Route 9 where Schlegel's staff moved several months ago. The Howell Fire Bureau also recently moved into the new building.

Mayor Robert Walsh said he was glad to see the move being done. "I'm looking forward to everybody being under one roof," he said. After working out some of the "kinks," of moving everybody in Walsh said he believes residents will see the benefits of the move.

It has been a year since the township purchased the building and the mayor said he believes the administration did a good job of moving the process along. "There was a lot involved," he said, "They had to manage this big project and at the same time they were doing their own job in the municipality." 

The meeting of the mayor and council scheduled for Tuesday looks to be the last one held at Preventorium Road and Walsh said he is looking forward to having the second meeting in October on Route 9. "That building out served its usefulness," he said. "It would have been an abuse of taxpayer money to have put millions of dollars into that building which is what would really have been needed."

While he enjoyed the time he spent serving the citizens of Howell in Town Hall, Walsh said he is "looking forward more to having the Oct. 16 meeting at the new Town Hall and christening that."

As far as what will happen to the old building now that its main occupants are out, Walsh said he did not know and was unsure if that would be his decision before his term runs out. "I said all along, even just to keep that building up is going to cost a lot of taxpayer money," he said. "The governing body will have to discuss it."