Dispute over Lake Neepaulin heads to court

Wantage — The Friends of Lake Neepaulin’s case against Wantage Township is heading to court today (April 8), to be heard by Superior Court Judge B. Theodore Bozonelis in Morristown. The group filed a lawsuit in State Superior Court in Newton in August after it lost the support of Wantage Township to conduct a special tax assessment to pay for repairs to the Lake Neepaulin dam. Engineers hired by Friends of Lake Neepaulin have estimated that dam repairs could run as high as $700,000 or more. The goal of the lawsuit is to reverse Wantage Township Committee’s decision to rescind an ordinance it had passed in October 2008 to authorize a special tax assessment for 720 residents of the lake community. After the committee passed the ordinance and began exploring various tax assessment options — including the possibility of a townwide tax — some Wantage residents regularly protested the decision at committee meetings. Then, the committee held a special public meeting at High Point Regional High School in June 2009, attended by about 150 people, at which the Township Committee decided to rescind the ordinance, on the grounds that it was in the best interest of the township to take no position on repairs to the dam.