IRVINGTON, NJ — Mayor Tony Vauss announced the appointment of former Irvington Public Library Board of Trustees President Alison Bryant to the township’s Planning Board on Saturday, Jan. 13.
Bryant is the current Rotary Club president and also serves in the New Jersey Library Trustee Association and the running of the CWU food pantry. She brings economic planning, development and redevelopment experience to the board, thanks to her ongoing involvement with the Irvington and East Orange chambers of commerce and other business-related organizations in and around Newark.
“I’m very pleased to have been appointed to the planning board, because the community and economic development of the Township of Irvington is very important to the overall quality of life of the residents of Irvington and the transient population,” said Bryant on Monday, Jan. 22. “The transient population are those people who are traveling to and from the township. They don’t necessarily live here, but they may come here to eat, work, worship and play or to utilize the host of resources which exist within our township.
“There are major corridors of travel, which are an integral part of the township, such as (the Garden State Parkway), Route 78, Clinton Avenue, Springfield Avenue, Lyons Avenue and Chancellor Avenue, just to name a few. Therefore, it is imperative that, as a planning board member, we review each and every proposal presented to us impartially and thoroughly, while remaining mindful of the proposed project’s capacity and capability to stimulate economic and community development.”
Bryant is a former president of the New Jersey Library Trustee Association and, in that capacity, she was one of the people chiefly responsible for helping to reopen the Orange Public Library in 2014 after it had closed down temporarily to address some longstanding issues, including a leaky roof.
Bryant was still on the Irvington Public Library Board of Trustees when former Orange Public Library Board of Trustees President Tyshammie Cooper arranged for the Irvington library to temporarily take on employees from the Orange library while it was closed for repairs.
Bryant remained involved and interested in the Orange Public Library. This interest, in addition to the activities of elected officials such as Orange North Ward Councilwoman Tency Eason and pressure from the federal Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration to speed up the institution’s reopening, assisted in resolving some of the library’s issues.
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