Municipal Open Space Trust Committee finally met March 8, 2016
No Public AGENDA was available- no mtg. notice on Website despite Council direction
Chair pressed to detail recent MOST expenditures; Chair had NO Financial Information
No prior meeting since 11/8, 2015 because Teaneck Administration had advised against it
Since 2004, Teaneck’s voters have agreed to add an additional and voluntary tax to their property tax bill to support the Township’s Open Space Trust Fund. TTT has begun to explore just how this fund is run. Are the voter’s decisions – as directly expressed in their votes – actually guiding how the Trust’s funds are spent? Is the town’s official MOST advisory committee guiding the use of the trust’s funds – or is the Committee even meeting regularly? If not, why not? Are the public hearings that are required to precede Council action to expend any MOST funds actually occurring?
All these questions arose at the MOST Committee’s first meeting in 16 months on Wednesday March 8. (What follows are the observations of the TTT’s Chuck Powers – a guest at the meeting – and are not official minutes.) In attendance was the full complement of MOST members except for the Township Engineer who is listed on the Town website as Committee co-chair. The other co-Chair, Rec. Director Glenna Crockett began the meeting indicating that she had no data of any sort about MOST’s financial status, recent spending etc. – citing the recent resignation of the Township’s CFO and the difficulty the Township was having in completing financial documents. Members expressed severe disappointment about 1) the absence of meetings; 2) apparent ignoring of recommendations; and 3) the absence of information about recent spending – particularly since it will have happened without consultation. Concern that the processes being used to manage MOST may not be in accordance with the referendum passed by Township voters was also expressed. The co-Chair proposed a schedule of meetings which places the next meeting (May 3) well after the Council should have completed its budgeting for 2017. Members expressed appreciation for the distribution of a folder of material that TTT has gathered that tracks (to the extent that Township financial documents on MOST are comprehensible at all) what the Town says MOST’s financial situation was as of August 23rd in response to an OPRA. The folder also provides the membership (and now the public) with what amounts to a primer on MOST.
Click the blue reference: 2017 Most folder rev
Why all the Confusion and Delay about the MOST Committee? The issue of MOST advice to Council came to a head initially in Council in a meeting on November 14, 2016. In it Councilman Schwartz asked whether the Council is allowed to move the open space advisory responsibilities of the current MOST Committee to the Parks, Playground and Recreation Advisory Board (PPRAB) which, oddly, the Councilman tells Council he “represents” [in fact, he is only their liaison].
His explicit argument was that the PPRAB is an active advisory body whereas the MOST Committee has not met in a year. In the ensuing discussion the issue of why the MOST Committee has not met was raised by Councilwoman Rice. The answer given by the Manager will surprise watchers. Indeed the explanation he had given less than two weeks earlier is a different one (as the video below shows). C. Sohn who is the Council liaison to the MOST committee gave a very different recent historical account of the MOST Committee and its meetings. A discussion then offered by Attorney Rupp about how guidance in the Township Code about advisory committees is inadequate did not materially to help clarify matters. Today, the MOST committee is the advisory committee on MOST spending – but has not met since 11/2015 it made a recommendation that some Council members did not like. (See below)
The MOST/PPRAB issue has been a source of continuing discussion ever since that November 14 meeting. At the December 13, 2016 Council meeting discussion focused on why the Recreation Director (who currently chairs the Committee, though Committee rules do not specify who should be chair) had not been calling MOST meetings and the Manager was told by Council – without dissent – to tell the Recreation Director to call a MOST meeting. The entire issue was then reportedly hotly debated in a subsequent meeting of the PPRAB the next day – on December 14, 2016. (A report of that discussion has inexplicably not yet been reported to the Council by its “representative” C. Schwartz – and minutes of the 12/14 PPRAB meeting are not publicly available on the website). Recently at a meeting of Council on January 7, 2017, the Manager was asked if he had communicated to the Recreation Director that she was to call a MOST meeting and what had been her answer. The Manager said she was planning to call a MOST committee meeting sometime in February. (video of this exchange is in preparation). A meeting has finally been scheduled.
Please watch this 9 minute video of the November 14 Council discussion and then keep watching this space as TTT continues to explore the legality of how and where the Township has been conducting its MOST business. TTT research has to-date found that the failure of the Council to call a public hearing in Council public sessions prior to the expenditure of ANY of MOST’s funds is contrary to the instructions Council has for 12 years given itself when directing that there be a MOST referendum put on the ballot every 4 years (in Presidential election years). TTT can find no record of such hearing having been placed on Council agendas when expenditure of MOST funds is included in Council actions. Though the Township’s accounting for MOST spending is not readily decipherable, it additionally appears that MOST expenditures have not followed the rules for its allocation approved by Teaneck voters.
The Council congratulates itself for carrying out a Sportsplex project that does not cost the Township taxpayer ANYTHING – oh wait a minute, it does cost well over $2 million in MOST funds which in fact are included in the property taxes every property owner pays – but somehow does not count as a tax because the majority of Teaneck people said they wanted an open space trust program. Doesn’t cost the taxpayer a penny because ????????? Let’s take a look
