In a shocking turn of events, the Mayor of Teaneck announced at last Tuesday’s February 22, 2022 Council Meeting, that he intends to introduce an ordinance in March that would authorize him, under certain conditions, to shut off residents’ input during public hearings on ordinances and during Good & Welfare.
The discussion began innocuously enough when Councilwoman Orgen introduced the topic of “Conduct on Public Forums”. She asked Council
“…if we could figure out some form of policy, without infringing on anybody’s first amendment rights, because I would never want to do that…where there is a line and you are out of order and you can no longer speak.”
At the previous meeting on February 8, 2022, she described the speech she wanted to target as “hate speech”. This time, she said
“…there are people who are vicious and name-calling when they speak…it’s hurtful and it’s undeserved and it brings down our level…”
Mayor Dunleavy then outlined his plans for an ordinance, describing his objective
“…as specifically “meeting decorum”, ok, something we don’t really have. We have a little note in there about it, but we really need to beef up what we are really doing. I think we’re way behind. We have to learn to respect each other and to talk to each other.”
The Mayor then issued two new rules:
- If a resident addresses an individual Councilmember rather than the Council as a whole, or
- If a resident “labels Councilmembers in a disparaging way” he would interrupt them and offer them the opportunity to rephrase their input. But, if in his opinion, they were continuing in the same vein, he would shut off their mic.
He phrased a third rule in his plan to establish “meeting decorum” this way:
“…if I think there is something that is said during the course of Good & Welfare that is knowingly, absolutely wrong, I am going to allow Council members to get my attention and if they feel they hear something that is totally erroneous, and I will ask them to very briefly give the truth at that time”
The Mayor vowed that these new rules were only a beginning and promised more in the ordinance he would present Council in March:
“…we need to be a little more civil with each other and respect each other and find a way to disagree professionally without having to character assassinate or cause other problems.”
“…please understand there is nobody here who wants diversity of opinion more than I do, but it can be done in a way that is not laced with other political, uh, or name-calling, uh, or other types of activities that really bring us all down”
What could “cause other problems” mean?
Is the Mayor really going to try to codify into Teaneck’s legal code a way for him to shut down a resident’s speech if in his opinion it is “causing problems”; if in his opinion it is “political”; if he feels it is an “other type of activity”?
Although the Council has not yet even seen the promised ordinance, much less adopted it – without any authorization whatsoever, even a legally dubious one – Mayor Dunleavy demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice the right to free speech in order to establish so-called “decorum” at last Tuesday’s Council meeting by shutting down a resident who asked pointed questions of the Council during the public hearing on the ordinance to charge for advertising in a new township newsletter.
Towards the end of the meeting, after about 15 of the 185 residents attending the meeting had spoken, the Mayor shut down Good & Welfare, and in his own response to G&W, he made it clear he intended Council members also to follow new rules for “Meeting Decorum”:
“So I wanna look at it more as a partnership rather than as an us-them and that’s how I’m gonna pursue it and I hope you understand and I hope you saw tonight, not a single person lost their ability to make their statements on whatever they wanted to talk about.”
Either the Mayor has a short-term memory problem or he outright distributed “misinformation.” Scarcely an hour after ordering the Clerk to shut off the mic thereby abrogating the first amendment rights of a Teaneck resident, he says not a single person was shut down for saying what was on their mind tonight.
How can Teaneck rely on this Council to set the record straight, to “give the truth” and “correct the misinformation being spread on social media”?
No matter the intentions of this Council, whether lofty or sinister, or merely the result of thin skins, it appears bent on travelling down an increasingly tyrannical path.
Teaneck Voices calls upon every citizen to speak up to prevent passage of the ordinance outlined by the Mayor and prepare for litigation if necessary. And to recognize Orwellian double-speak when you hear it.
“I’m not here to bully. I’m here to facilitate. I want everybody to feel comfortable.”
-Mayor Dunleavy, Teaneck Council Meeting, February 22, 2022
This post – Free Speech to be Squelched in Teaneck?- provides viewers with two You Tube videos that will allow them – in the space of either 9 minutes, or 27 minutes – to view the initial roll-out of how the Township’s Mayor, James Dunleavy, described and then began to implement restrictions on what public speakers in public input portions of Teaneck Council meetings will be allowed to say – else they will be cut off.
