Finally, Teaneck Council’s Agreed to Meet on May 5 – breaking what would have been an 8 week hiatus
It met – but only after Stipulating it could address only extending the Town’s tax due deadline by 20 days while the Town was facing unprecedented challenges
It is still Abdicating its democratic responsibilities
Teaneck’s current Council has for months – no actually for years – abdicated its responsibility to serve as the elected interface and policy maker between the Town’s forty-one thousand people and the supremely difficult decisions and choices being made now and for the future as the Town grapples with the coronavirus pandemic which has destroyed or taken an inordinate number of resident lives and torn to shreds the disparate patterns of social interaction which make this a viable community. Several officials have said the Town has faced nothing like this Covid-19 pandemic since WWII. How has Council responded to it?
1) Except for the 20 day tax extension , Teaneck’s Council to this day (5/13) proposed or taken literally no Council action (neither a single word nor number) in response to anything related the Covid-19 – including even at its single mid-pandemic March 24 virtual meeting;
2)Except for that tax extension, Teaneck Council will not have met for 8 weeks – March until May 19 – and somehow cancelled its scheduled April 6 meeting “because there are no matters for the continuing operation of government”, a cancellation which two members of Council found out about
3) Teaneck Council is likely NJ’s only governing board/legislative body at any level (state, county and municipality) not to have met at least 5 times with quorums while the Teaneck Council has hibernated (see below). Most others will have provided 1) video public access and opportunity for constituent input; 2) videos of separated official members as they participated in discussion and voting;
4) Several Council members continue to claim that the Town’s official 2020 introduced budget “is perfect” and specifically that its claimed result (“no increase in taxes” ) remains valid while literally every other governmental unit in the state is actively engaged in trying to account for the diverse and powerful fiscal effects of the pandemic on all public budgets. Only Teaneck …
5) Teaneck Council has in steps for more than a decade been slashing both the number and duration of its public meetings so that when it entered 2020:
- it had scheduled to conduct just 40% of the per-year meetings it had held in, for example, 2007; and then:
- has already cancelled 4 of the 2020 meetings to which it had originally (11/12/19) committed–down to 16;
- has in its six 2020 public sessions to-date been in deliberative session for a total of less than 6 hours!
- by ordinance and practiced has reduced both the duration and number of opportunities for public input in Teaneck Council meetings continue.
This is not a criticism of Manager Kazinci and his management of a Town which, for most of the pandemic, has been uniquely savaged by Covid-19. Rather, it is a very serious commentary on the fact that the Council – qua Council – plainly went off to other pursuits – and the Manger has been left to make and implement all the big decisions that, in the sharpest possible contrast, are everywhere else being made not by appointed officials but by elected governing boards or other legislative bodies
But wait? Is all this true? Has Council really been abdicating? Don’t we keep getting emails and messages from some Council members about community gatherings they are sponsoring? Yes – and that is simply NOT an excuse for failing to use the authority we “the Teaneck people” gave to them as Council members to do the work of our governing board to guide us through this terrible pandemic so that we emerge from it with a sustainable and viable municipal governance?
Back to first principles: Teaneck’s municipal policy and budget – like that of every other municipality in the state – legally is required to be set by a Council majority making decisions in the context of a properly called public meeting where a quorum of members is in attendance and where citizens are permitted to observe and provide input. In Teaneck, each of the seven Council members have an equal voice and vote.
No activities, rallies, forums – nothing – that occur(s) outside of the public meeting context/set of rules as defined by NJ’s Senator Byron M. Baer Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) has any legal force or standing. The Council literally does not exist as the Town governing board except in the setting defined by OPMA. For example, legally no municipal checks should be sent until Council approves the bill list in a properly called meeting. Do you believe Teaneck has not paid a bill since March 24?
Actual Council meetings matter. But Teaneck’s Council which has long avoided the proper time, effort and process – has now completely bowed out until…. until what?
1) it thinks the fiercest fury of Covid-19 will have passed? or,
2) it thinks it needs to avoid resident input and avoid making hard decisions until May 19? ( A date which coincidentally is a week after the biennial Council election has passed.)
Data to support the summary JUST provided:
- Except for the tax deadline exception Teaneck Council to this day has proposed or taken literally no Council action (neither a single word nor number) in response to anything related the Covid-19 – including at its single mid-pandemic March 24 virtual meeting;
Kudos to the reader who can find anything – words or numbers – in the ordinances or resolutions considered by Council at its March 24 meeting that would have been altered to reflect /accommodate/adjust for the then sharply escalating impact of Corvid-19 on the Township. (see the minutes packet – click here and the video of the virtual meeting click here. As noted there has been no subsequent meeting and the prior meetings (2/26 v& 2/27A) occurred 2 days before the first US death attributed to the coronavirus.
2)Teaneck Council will not have met for 8 weeks – March until May 19 – and somehow cancelled its scheduled April 6 meeting “because there are no matters for the continuing operation of government”, a cancellation which two members of Council found out about AFTER the decision (by whom? ) had been announced.
The Sunshine Notice that cancelled the scheduled April 6 Council meeting was prominently published on the website on 3/31 – though two members of Council first found out that the cancellation was being considered when they got an email of the Sunshine Notice. A copy can still be found by clicking April 6 on the on the April calendar (click here to go to the page).
3) Teaneck Council is likely NJ’s only governing board/legislative body at any level (state, county and municipality) not to have met at least 5 times with quorums while the Teaneck Council has hibernated (see below). Most others will have provided 1) video public access and opportunity for constituent input; 2) videos of separated official members as they participated in discussion and voting.
For example: The Teaneck Board of Education has been holding weekly or biweekly full or workshop meetings – virtually – throughout April and May . Click around other municipality websites. Or rely on several images here of videos or agendas for several others.
A particularly poignant example is the image from the April 1 Freeholder meeting. During the simultaneously available screened session with a full public access ad opportunity to participate – & with all Freeholder members visually participating, the Freeholder chair is announcing the death two days earlier of Teaneck icon, Janice Preschel.
The Freeholders are still meeting weekly The next image is the announcement of a similarly Hackensack Council meeting process and agendas Monday 4/20
.
4) 4) Several Council members continue to claim that the Town’s official 2020 introduced budget “is perfect” and specifically that its claimed result (“no increase in taxes” ) remains valid while literally every other governmental unit in the state is actively engaged in trying to account for the diverse and powerful fiscal effects of the pandemic on all public budgets. Only Teaneck …
Hillsdale Council met twice the week of April 13 with a special meeting called Friday the 17th to which the Council devoted 2 more hours trying to sort out how to include revenue and expense implications in its temporary and final annual. It was not fun! Click here or see image below.
ht7tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9rcCFTYFsE&feature=youtu.be
5) Teaneck Council has in steps for more than a decade been slashing both the number and duration of its public meetings so that when it entered 2020:
- it had scheduled to conduct just 40% of the per-year meetings it had held in, for example, 2007; and then:
- has already cancelled 4 of the 2020 meetings to which it had originally (11/12/19) committed–down to 16;
- has in its six 2020 public sessions to-date been in deliberative session for a total of less than 6 hours!
- by ordinance and practiced has reduced both the duration and number of opportunities for public input in Teaneck Council meetings continue.
A review of the Teaneck Council meeting schedule for 2007 shows Council met 47 times following Open Public Meetings Act requirements: 33 times on Tuesday nights in either full public session or workshops, five budget meetings, 1 special meeting and 8 community meetings conducted so as to allow all Council members to attend
Teaneck today – not so much. Its most recent calendar shows this – with 3 of the 4 cancellations identified:
If It actually meets when scheduled for the rest of the year, it will have met a total of 17 times. On a more careful look, the time devoted to actual discussion of and taking action – even including the time spent responding to public input – for the entire year to-date– as seen in this chart:
And the Council has been working hardest to reduce time spent – and time listening to its constituents – since especially December 2014. At its December 2014 retreat, Council specifically charged its attorneys with writing an ordinance to reduce the time any speaker had in Good & Welfare to 3 minutes – with the same total time each Council member would have to respond. It reworked meeting order and procedure. The ordinance passed 3 months later (March 24, 2015). It is well worth reading – especially its first Whereas clause. Click here. Even more revealing was that retreat discussion – and particularly to hear the views about public input from the Town’s current two Deputy Mayors. Click here and then go to 2:12 of the audio session (for off-site retreats there are no videos).
PS: About that 2014 retreat! If you want to know from whence came the impetus to put a colossal billboard on Route 4 as part of the effort to commercialize the protected open space on the Route 4 Greenbelt, drop back a minute on that 2014 Council retreat audio just referenced. Teaneck may have said – Council may even have voted – in the summer of 2017 that it wanted that Greenbelt protected (2000 residents had signed petitions). But that resolution was first changed and then ignored. The Town Attorney still claims that some undefined litigation not only keeps in limbo the billboard issue, but freezes everything about completing definition of the Greenbelt and prohibits resolution of the differences between the State and Town as to the full extent of its protected open space. But that, friends, is another story…. Well not quite. The issue is how to assure democracies great goal – to have public policy defined by the vote and will of the people!
