TOMS RIVER, NJ — When the Toms River Township Council opens 2019 with its annual reorganization meeting on Thursday night, it also will be starting the year with questions as the township is starting the year with an internal investigation.

At the Dec. 26 council meeting, after its closed executive session, voted in public session to direct business administrator Don Guardian to hire Howard B. Mankoff of the firm Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin of Roseland, NJ, "in connection with a township personnel matter," according to the resolution. In announcing the resolution for a vote, township clerk Alison Carlisle referred to it as "an internal investigation." The resolution did not set a maximum expenditure for the matter.

What that investigation entails or who is being investigated is unclear, however. Mankoff's biography on the law firm's website says his practice "focuses on professional liability defense, employment litigation and public entity liability defense."

"In a precedent-setting decision before the Third Circuit, Howard successfully argued that a municipality can exclude houses of worship in order to facilitate economic redevelopment," the biography says. The reorganization meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the L. Manuel Hirshblond meeting room at Town Hall.

The Toms River Board of Education is holding an information session, at 6:30 p.m., at Toms River East on the upcoming Jan. 22 referendum.