Eatontown mayor seeks new town hall at fort
Tarantolo has sights on CECOM bldg. for new boro hall
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Gerald J. Tarantolo

EATONTOWN - Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo believes he has found an ideal location for a newer, larger town hall.

Tarantolo's preferred site now houses the U.S. Army's Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM) at Fort Monmouth, which is scheduled to close under the Pentagon's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process in September 2011.

At the Oct. 18 meeting of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority, Tarantolo, an authority member, presented his intentions to the panel overseeing future uses of the base's 1,126 acres after the fort shuts down.

The 50,000-square-foot building is physically situated in Eatontown's portion of the base, which also spreads into neighboring Oceanport and Tinton Falls.

Because the CECOM building is likely to be vacated once the fort closes, Eatontown's borough government is hoping it can move operations into the building, Tarantolo said.

To that end, the town's governing body will be submitting a Notice of Interest to the U.S. Department of the Army and to the authority's leadership asking the federal government to convey the property to the borough, Tarantolo said.

"That letter should be forthcoming to this authority very shortly," Tarantolo said.

The borough will be seeking guidance from John Leigh, the Arlington, Virginia-based project manager assigned to the local authority by the Defense Department's Office of Economic Adjustment on how to arrange for a transfer of the property, Tarantolo said.

At 15,000 square feet, the current borough hall, where the authority's last meeting was held, has reached its capacity, Tarantolo explained.

"We're bursting at the seams," he said.

If the borough can obtain the property through a public benefit conveyance arrangement, that is a mutually agreed upon transfer between two government entities, the borough would relocate most of its administrative offices in the CECOM building, Tarantolo said.

In addition, the borough would try to invite the Eatontown Board of Education, now housed in the former Steelman School on Broad Street, to relocate its offices as well, the mayor said.

None of the other seven authority members present at the meeting commented on Tarantolo's proposal.

However, some members of the public in attendance praised Tarantolo's idea, including an Oceanport resident who suggested taking it a step further.

The governing bodies of Tinton Falls and Oceanport ought to explore relocating their borough operations in the CECOM building, said John Bonforte of Oceanport.

"I think that a 50,000-square-foot [building] is big enough to put Tinton Falls and Oceanport [municipal government] in there and save us some money," Bonforte said during the public portion.

The existing CECOM building also holds a 100-seat auditorium and an 800-seat amphitheater, both of which could be used by the borough for large meetings or even by community groups needing a large space, Tarantolo has said.

Aside from the CECOM building, Eatontown is also seeking to obtain the mostly vacated Howard Commons military housing complex located off Hope Road.

That initiative is currently on hold due to the fort's imminent closing and submission of a reuse plan for the entire base.

However, Tarantolo has said that obtaining and rehabilitating the 486-unit complex could help the borough meet its future Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligations.