Zoning Board chairman steps down after 14 years
Andrew J. Nagy leaves board with pride in having served community
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

KATHY CHANG After 14 years of serving on the township Zoning Board, Andrew J. Nagy Jr. said it is time for him to move on. Nagy stands with his wife, Shirley of 51 years, at their home in the Fords section of Woodbridge.

WOODBRIDGE – After 14 years of serving on the Township Zoning Board, Andrew J. Nagy Jr. said it’s time for him to move on.

“I have enjoyed my civic service to the township,” said Nagy, who announced at the Nov. 30 board meeting that he would not seek another term. “I will miss it, but there are great people that will follow me.”

Nagy, who has lived in the Fords section of Woodbridge for 43 years, said that when he looks back on his 14 years, he is most proud of the board’s ability to handle each case on its own merit with fairness to all the applicants.

“Our job is to do what’s best for Woodbridge, and we do,” he said. “We have approved 800-plus units of 55-year-old-and-over developments such as the Continental Properties Inc. application for the old Gerber site and the Woodbridge Hills development in Iselin.”

Nagy said one of the most memorable cases that the board dealt with was the big furor over the billboard on Main Street in Fords a couple of years ago.

“We approved an application to put a billboard up, which was designated at 63 feet in height,” he said. “But a couple of months later, the billboard was raised another 15 feet without any further approval.”

After a series of negotiations, the billboard was placed back down to where it was approved.

“It was definitely a contentious and interesting case,” he said.

Nagy, who is 71, spoke of the people he has met along the way, from when he was a boy in elementary school to people he has made friendships with on the Zoning Board.

“I moved to the Hopelawn section of Woodbridge with my parents in 1939 when I was 4,” he said. “I still remember my elementary school principal, Mary C. Fee. She was a wonderful influence on me.”

Then Nagy went on to graduate from Woodbridge High School, which was on Barron Avenue at the time, in 1952 at the age of 16.

“We had double sessions in school at that time,” he said. “The freshmen and sophomores went to school in the afternoon, and juniors and seniors went to school in the morning. This allowed us to have part-time jobs and taught us to have a good work ethic.”

After graduation, Nagy served a three-year apprenticeship with the now defunct Federal Seaboard Terra Cotta Corp. in Perth Amboy as an architectural draftsman.

“I worked there for three years and received a scholarship to Cooper Union College of Art and Architecture in New York City,” he said. “I majored in architecture and went to college at night, while I worked during the day. But, I never got a chance to finish because I became ill.”

Nagy met his wife, Shirley, in 1952 when he was 16 years old and they married shortly before their 19th birthdays.

In 1958, Nagy was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the Signal Communication Security Agency.

“I was stationed at Arlington Hall Station, home to code breakers during World War II and the Cold War with the Soviet Union, in Arlington, Virginia,” he said. “We had to have a U.S. Army crypto clearance to serve in the agency. It was top secret.”

Nagy’s wife was working for Hess Oil at the time .

“I was talking to someone at work and told her about where my husband was going to serve,” said Shirley. “It turns out she knew the post commander at Arlington Hall where Andrew was going to serve. It’s a small world. I also got a job at the Army Security Agency.”

The Nagys lived in Arlington, Va., from 1958 to 1960.

“We each worked for secret agencies, but we didn’t keep secrets from each other,” said Nagy. “Then we moved back to Woodbridge and had our two children, Andrew and Tara.”

Nagy got a job working for the Austin Co. Designers, Engineers & Builders in Piscataway.

“I worked there for 32 years and became a senior project manager before I was laid off because of downsizing,” said Nagy. “We worked on projects involving aircraft plants for the Boeing Company and Grumman; research labs for Glyco Chemical and Eskimo Pie; TV broadcasting facilities for Channel 29 in Philadelphia; and several bank headquarters, including the New Jersey National Bank in Ewing Township.”

In 1986, Ernie Oros, who was a councilman at the time, asked Nagy to serve on the Zoning Board. Oros would later become an assemblyman.

“I served as a second alternate for the board in 1986 and became a first alternate in 1987,” said Nagy.

Nagy left the board after three years, during the political turnaround in the township.

“After I was laid off, I talked to Frank Pelzman, who was a good friend of mine from high school,” he said.

Pelzman, who was a councilman at the time in 1995, asked Nagy if he would be interested in serving on the Zoning Board again. Pelzman, who went on to become mayor in 2002, died in 2006.

“I said yes, since I always had a great interest in seeing engineering projects develop and wanting to serve my community with the experience I had gained,” said Nagy. “Ernie Neil was the board’s chairperson at the time and we became very good friends over the years.”

In late 2003, Neil resigned from the chairman position due to health problems. Nagy was vice chairman at the time.

“I ended up running for the position of chairman and have been chairman ever since,” he said. “Ernie was a great mentor. Also, I can’t say enough about the board members, our attorneys Al Russo and Tim Casey, who always kept us on the right track, and our secretary, Arlene Volkay. She is wonderful. I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

Shirley, who used to attend the board meetings until she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003, said she is proud of her husband.

“During that time, he did not miss one meeting,” she said. “He was dedicated to the board on top of taking care of me. All the board members should be credited for dedicating their time.”

Nagy said he will be involved with his church, the First Presbyterian Church on Rahway Avenue, and have time to travel to see his daughter, son-in-law and 22-month-old grandson in Virginia.

“We usually try to go down to see them every six to eight weeks,” said Shirley. “The trips always were confined to when we had to come back for a Zoning Board meeting.”

Nagy’s last meeting on the board is Dec. 28.

“Then we have our board’s Christmas party on the 29th,” said Nagy. “It’s a nice way to close out the year.”