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 

At the previous meeting on February 8, 2022, she described the speech she wanted to target as “hate speech”. This time, she said

Mayor Dunleavy then outlined his plans for an ordinance, describing his objective

The Mayor then issued two new rules: 

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:

The Mayor vowed that these new rules were only a beginning and promised more in the ordinance he would present Council in March:

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":

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.

 

    -Mayor Dunleavy, Teaneck Council Meeting, February 22, 2022

See a 27-minute longer version of what transpired at Council that includes the residents' responses to shutting off their mics.

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Jacqueline (Jackie) McLeod, a resident of Teaneck for 47 years speaks with a voice of calm authority and has the courage to use it.

Jackie was born in Columbia, South Carolina. Her mother died from tuberculosis when she was 8. She and her sister were raised by her fraternal grandmother. At age 11, the family moved to Washington Heights in NYC where they lived with an aunt and uncle.

Her aunt, always a role model was a nurse, so Jackie decided to pursue a nursing career. She earned her B. S. in Nursing Education at New York University, followed by her MPH (Master of Public Health) from Columbia University. She turned in her last paper two weeks before her daughter was born. By then she was living in Teaneck.

Although Jackie and her then husband moved to Teaneck because they loved Tudor houses and wanted to own one (and she is still living in the same home 47 years later), her deep emotional attachment to the township developed when she served on the Teaneck Board of Education.

Jackie was elected to the Board in 1987. In 1990, when she was running for her second term, the Phillip Pannell shooting occurred. The night of the shooting Jim Delaney, Principal of Teaneck High School, called her and asked her if she would come to the school the next day and talk to the students.

Jackie called some friends and asked them to join her. “We spent the entire day talking with the kids and we really had them in a good space.”

Then that night the outsiders came in and the riots started. “It was a very tumultuous time because there were people just trying to incite violence.

Jackie says, “I felt we had to be strong and positive. The group of us connected with several of the students who were close to Phillip Pannell and we stayed close to them during that week before the funeral. We took them to the funeral where things became very emotional, so we decided we needed to get the kids out of there. Someone told us there was a gathering at First Baptist Church in Teaneck.

We took the students there, but the gathering turned out to be mostly outsiders, with a few Teaneck folks. The conversation was not good – it was about ‘We need to protect ourselves – we need guns.’” She was horrified.

Jackie went to the front of the room, demanded attention and said, “This has got to stop! You don’t belong here; you don’t live here.” Her words ended the meeting. Afterward, people said “You are a very brave person to get up in front of these people – and you were by yourself.” That event defined Jacqueline McLeod for Teaneck.

Later that month she was re-elected to the Board of Education with the greatest number of votes and was elected President of the Board.

Jackie was significantly instrumental in starting the renowned Forum at the high school. As she tells, the story: Judy Distler had submitted a plan for a youth center at the high school, but nothing seemed to be happening. Jackie and then Mayor Eleanor Kieliszek attended a speech by then Governor Florio at FDU. Jackie and Eleanor managed to speak to the Governor and he told them to speak to his staff person, Jamie Fox.

Jackie had been president of the American Lung Association when Jamie Fox was a staff person for Senator Lautenberg. Lautenberg had been honored by the ALA , and after the ceremony had forgotten a folder. Jackie had picked it up and returned it to the Senator’s office.

So, when she went up to Fox, he said, “I remember you – you returned a folder that was very valuable.”

Two weeks later Teaneck got their grant, and that is how the Forum came about!

Jackie believes that Teaneck is one of the best places to live, that it is a microcosm of the world. “But” she says, “We have a lot of work to do right now. We have problems and we need to sit down and address them.”

“I have real issues with our leadership because I think they promote the divide that has grown instead of encouraging people to sit down and talk about how to live together, how to have tolerance and respect for other people, and how to look at things for the common good."

Jackie says her neighborhood in the Northwest section of town, has changed dramatically. There is tension and a lack of respect among some of the neighbors.

She cites an incident. Her son-in-law, Amra was taking plants from the trunk of his car when a White man walking his dog (without a leash) asked him if he was lost. Her son-in-law said, “No I live here.” The man responded, “There’s been a lot of burglaries, so I was concerned."

Jackie posted the story on FaceBook and got many responses: “This is not how Teaneck used to be.”

She thinks the man must have seen it on FB because she saw him several months later. When he saw her he said “Oh god.” She went up to him and said, “You know why I’m coming to talk to you – what you said IS NOT TEANECK. What you said was racist because you saw a Black man in this neighborhood.” He said, “I’m not racist.” Jackie responded, “You asked my son-in-law that question and it should not have been asked. Many people do racist things and are not aware of it. Then when you find out not, you try to make it OK by saying there were burglaries here – that was racist too.” Once again her courageous, proud, voice of authority was heard.

Professionally, Jacqueline served as the Executive Director of Healing Communities Network (HCN), a prison re-entry program for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated that addressed successful re-integration into the community.

Jacqueline previously worked for 20 years as a professional fundraiser for national, state and local organizations. She was the first Director of the Office of Minority Health for the 13 public and private medical schools in New York State. She has taught Health Education courses at St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY, Montclair University, and Jersey City University.

She has been a member of the Black Women’s Health Study Advisory Board, Sloan Epidemiology Center at Boston University since 1991. She was a member of the National Institutes of Health – Heart, Blood and Lung Advisory Council, Bethesda, Maryland for four years, where she was a member of the team that reviewed multi-million-dollar research grants awarded by the United States government. She is an Alumnae Member of the Bergen County NJ Links and the Martin Luther King, Jr Birthday Celebration Committee.

Jacqueline is the widow of Rev. Dr. Lonnie McLeod and mother of one daughter Jennifer and grandmother to twins – Ava and Alex Tomlinson, who now attend Teaneck High School.

“I love Teaneck. I’m a very strong advocate for this town. We may be down now, but we will rise again.”

There were two significant developments in Teaneck this week about which there was no controversy – and several others about which controversy now swirls.

Teaneck Historic Preservation Commission (THPC) held its regular monthly zoom meeting on Wednesday 2/23. It was attended by its own 6 Commissioners and by 3 staff employees of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Natural & Historic Resources, and Historic Preservation Office (HPO).

The state visitors expressed enthusiasm for the evolving agenda of THPC including its recent Certified Local Government (CLG) report to the State’s HPO. The Township is now eligible to apply for Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) grants of up to $50,000 for historic preservation planning activities in our CLG community, including education, outreach, and training opportunities for a variety of local preservation activities.

The Commission heard reports and took additional action to further its active campaign to produce and place historic markers for the Black Lives Matter mural at Bryant School and commemorating musician Ulysses Kay, and other selected replacement park markers.

The Commission supported initiation of the process for having the Teaneck Armory designated as an historic site.

Community Energy Aggregation moves forward. Council passed a resolution (48-2022) at its Tuesday 2/22 which expresses Council’s interest in joining the Sustainable Essex Alliance as a participating municipality and gives the Manager authority to take steps to implement its intent. There appears to be consensus support that joining this Alliance would be a preferred path for implementing the Community Energy Aggregation referendum supported by a nearly 2-1 majority on the November ballot.  

Introduction of a Zoning Ordinance to implement Holy Name expansion. To pass a Teaneck ordinance, Council must first approve its Introduction and at a subsequent meeting hold a public hearing before voting on whether to adopt the Introduced ordinance.

There were 185 participants at Tuesday’s zoom Council meeting, and although only about 15 of them were given an opportunity to speak in Good & Welfare, most were there to speak for or against the timing of the hospital zoning ordinance. Virtually every speaker supported hospital expansion – but the majority sharply criticized Council’s decision to pass the zoning ordinance before a signed agreement exists between the neighbors and the hospital about future expansion. The neighbors have consistently asserted any agreement must include a deed restriction on future expansion.

At the end of its December 16 meeting, when the Planning Board approved an amendment to the Master Plan paving the way for subsequent hospital zoning, Deputy Mayor Schwartz made the following statement:

The Good & Welfare speakers who asked Council to delay its zoning ordinance constantly cited that statement.

At this week’s Council meeting, Schwartz waved a copy of a document he said was signed by the Hospital and invited the Good Neighbors of Teaneck group to send him a similar one signed by them, and suggested that he (Schwartz) could meld an agreement. Council then approved introduction of the hospital ordinance (9-2022, which is found at pp. 268ff of the Council agenda packet click here).

In a statement sent to the Clerk Good Neighbors’ leader Alan Rubenstein said that the hospital’s “signed agreement” includes the following statement about a 40-year deed restriction:

(The 115 neighbors referenced above are the residents who signed a July 9, 2019 letter to the hospital.)

In other words, no agreement signed by both parties should be considered imminent.

Council’s current introduced ordinance references Council’s plans to hold the public hearing and the final vote on the hospital zoning ordinance at its next regular Council meeting on March 15th. Prior to that meeting, the Planning Board is required to specify whether it agrees that the newly-Introduced hospital ordinance is consistent with the Master Plan (MP) – a step considered pro forma since the PB has just amended the MP which then guided drafting of the zoning ordinance.

One can anticipate steps by either party – or Council negotiators –prior to March 15. Watch this space.

Council passed an ordinance establishing fees for inclusion of business cards in the recently approved quarterly Council Newsletter whose first edition is expected on April 1.

Although only the Newsletter’s fees were on the Council agenda, discussion of what the Newsletter is and is not intended to be and achieve spilled over into various parts of the meeting. It is expected to be distributed by email and to be authored in the Manager’s office.

Public input speakers raised questions about whether the plan to keep the newsletter non-political and focused strictly on accurate reporting of municipal activities and plans could be achieved. Whether the Mayor was successful in repeated efforts to assure residents on this question is not clear.

The Mayor responded to questions and concerns raised by Councilwoman Orgen about whether speakers at Council meetings should be regulated. He said he was in the process of developing an ordinance on "Meeting Decorum".

What Councilwoman Orgen asked and how Mayor Dunleavy responded are found in this 9-minute video taken directly from the Township’s video recording.

Additional discussion of this contentious matter can be found in the article Free Speech Squelched in Teaneck? found in this edition of Teaneck Voices

Appointments can be scheduled at www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/en/covid19/schedule

Free at-home COVID-19 tests ordered on www.covidtests.gov and delivered by USPS. Limit of 1 order per household. Each order contains 4 individual tests.

In an effort to keep the senior center staff and participants safe, all are required to be fully vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination. Mask wearing and social distancing are required.

Forms for the spring session are available February 14 in the senior center lobby, outside of the recreation office on the first floor and online on the town website. Spring classes begin in March.

Registration for the classes beginning on March 14th is done by calling the Senior Center on the day scheduled. See page four of the registration form for call in times. Registration ends March 2nd. 

Teaneck Library Services and Schedule have been altered due to COVID: See updated schedule

There are only three municipal meetings on the Township calendar for this week – since the first Council Budget meeting, originally scheduled for Thursday March 3, has been canceled for unspecified reasons. (The first Council budget meeting is now scheduled for Thursday March 10).

What remains on the calendar for this week are:

Monday February 28, 2022 at 7:30pm.

Public access and opportunity for input limited by Advisory Board ordinance (*see below)

Wednesday March 2, 2022 at 7:30pm

Public access and opportunity for input limited by Advisory Board ordinance (*see below)

Thursday March 3, 2022 at 7:00pm

As of 2/27 no information was available from the Township as to the location, zoom address or agenda of this scheduled statutory land use board meeting.

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For those subscribers looking for agenda information about Teaneck’s land use boards:

Events at the Library: Click here

Click onto the link below to attend on February 28 at 7:30 p.m.

We're pleased to announce our first ever Teaneck eCitizen Program for adults! This program aims to teach participants how to:

January 19 to February 23 is now FULL. This Program will be offered again in March and April. Click here for more detailed information about this Program.