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Robert Fulper and Frank McVey did two seperate promotional events to promote the changing of the Peron Construction property zoning from residential to industrial. They did a Facebook Live event on January 20, 2021 and a live event on January 23, 2021.
At the January 23, 2021 event, Robert Fulper and Frank McVey both strongly supported and promoted changing the zoning on the property along the riverfront in downtown Phillipsburg to change from residential to industrial.
In addition to seeing elected officials acting as proxy promotors for the interest of a private company at the January 23, 2021 promotional event for Peron Construction, there were some other memorable events that occured. A member of the group listening, an environmentalist by the name of Lee Clark, started to ask some questions about the environmental impact of the warehouse. Shortly after starting to ask questions, Robert Fulper claimed Lee Clark was attending the event because he is running for Council, which at that time was not true. As Lee was trying to get his questions in, a uniformed police officer who was in attendance cut off conversation. It was interesting that other individuals were allowed to ask their questions prior to Lee Clark speaking. It is also interesting that the only person that was cut off in speaking was Lee Clark, who is experienced in the areas of environmental protection and happened to be the only black individual in the crowd.To the left is a picture of attendees at the January 23, 2021 promotion presented by Robert Fulper and Frand McVey with regards to changing the zoning of the Peron property from residential to industrial.
After the uniformed officer cut Lee Clark off and shut down the question and answer between Robert Fulper and the attendees, the officer then spent several minutes promoting the agenda of Robert Fulper and Frank McVey, and stongly argued for the change of the Peron Construction property zoning change from residential to industrial. I have attended many public meetings, but I had never seen a uniformed police officer interject himself into the meeting such as was done at this meeting. Neither Robert Fulper nor Frank McVey seemed to have any concern at Lee Clark being cut off or a uniformed police officer promoting a contraversial agenda. This issue had already been shown to be contraversial at the prior Town Council meeting, even between the Council members.