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FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO THRIVE IN TEANECK,

WE NEED DISCRETIONARY FUNDS - UPDATED


PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

Updated Version - 12/14/2022

Contents View this issue in your browser


Updated after 12/13 Council Meeting

For Small Businesses to Thrive In Teaneck,

We Need Discretionary Funds

No Outdoor Cafes Ordinance After All

A Board of Adjustment Vacancy - But Filled by What Process?

This Week in AINR Redevelopment

This Week's Public Meetings


 Contacting Teaneck Voices

FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO THRIVE IN TEANECK,

WE NEED DISCRETIONARY FUNDS


Teaneck is in mourning over the imminent loss of our beloved Bischoff’s. Most of us are stocking up on pumpkin fudge and coffee chip ice cream, hot fudge sauce and homemade whipped cream, and wondering if we and our neighbors could have spent more time and money to help sustain it.



So many residents went through the same pain when the legendary Louie’s, the Cedar Lane Diner, and Classic Quiche closed.


Before the Covid pandemic, Teaneck residents quite cheerfully paid their high property taxes, carefully putting aside their discretionary income (the money remaining after their taxes are paid) for rent, utilities, gas – and those treats offered by our local businesses like The Golden Grill, Bischoff’s, Mortgage Apple Cakes, Vitale’s and the fresh bagel shops.


We repeatedly were told by our Council that they were helping us by presenting a 0%-increase budget year after year. But most of us were wiser. We saw that our governing body was borrowing money and increasing our debt; we knew many of our friends and neighbors who were first responders would be retiring and were owed pensions and payment for saved sick and vacation days; we remembered that in the past many of the first responders retired with as much as $250,000 due them.

We knew, but we engaged in “magical thinking” encouraged by our Council, that somehow the future would take care of itself; that somewhere the hundreds of thousands of dollars for retirements and paying the increasing interest on the town’s increasing debts would have to be found.


Then the pandemic hit. We were afraid to go out to eat, to purchase food that some human hands might have touched. But our small business neighbors did all they could to sustain themselves and to help us enjoy a few goodies in the gloomy times we were enduring – gloved and masked, they carried food out to us on the sidewalk or in our cars; they engaged delivery services.


We are – more or less – emerging from the pandemic, but our town’s small businesses are having a harder time. We’re out of the habit of popping out for a local treat or a sandwich lunch; necessities are more expensive, and so, most of us have less discretionary income which is essential for small businesses to thrive.


And, as we are learning, it is time to “pay the piper.” The first responders who hung on to serve through the pandemic are now retiring, interest rates on our debt are rapidly rising, and the reality of realistic tax increases is looming.


Most of us, wiser than the Council majority of the past many years, are reserving our dollars to prepare to pay the higher taxes that will be inevitable.


And that tells a sad tale for our family-owned and small businesses.


HOWEVER, it is important for Teaneck residents to know that one of our fellow residents who is also a Town Councilman and has been for 24 years – does not share our pain. Deputy Mayor Elie Y. Katz who squeaked by into 4th place in this last election, is, indeed, more comfortable than most residents of Teaneck.


·       According to ELEC reports filed so far, Katz and the Katz slate raised over $141,000 and spent over $122,000 on the election campaign this Fall. All that to come in last, carry none of his colleague candidates to a win, and send a message to local residents that they probably can’t afford to run for an office to govern their town. If DM Katz has the wherewithal to raise $141+K, imagine what good he could do for the small businesses and residents of our town.


·       As Teaneck Voices has made clear in many articles, Katz is the beneficiary of a grandfathered law which is giving him and his family $35,000 of top line tax-free healthcare insurance with an out-of-pocket of only about $1,000. This benefit enables DM Katz to “earn” 46% of the total taxpayer dollars provided to Councilmembers: 6 councilmembers each make $7,000/yr.; DM Katz makes $42,000/yr. In 2022 dollars, over 24 years, DM Katz has received about $840,000 from Teaneck taxpayers.


That is $840,000 of healthcare for DM Elie Y. Katz from the residents’ discretionary income. A bitter pill for the mourners of Bischoff’s, Louie’s - and more to come.

NO OUTDOOR CAFES ORDINANCE AFTER ALL


Update: at the 12/13 Council Meeting, the originally scheduled public hearing and vote to adopt/reject this Outdoor Cafes Ordinance was, in fact, removed from the agenda and not addressed.



As of close of business on Thursday December 8, the Teaneck Council was poised to overcome two previously failed 2022 attempts to approve an ordinance (this time Ord. #57-2022) that would authorize outdoor cafes to jut into Town streets in front of restaurants.


But not for all restaurants!


In fact, by most accounts, this Outdoor Cafes ordinance like its two failed predecessors, would be applicable only to those restaurants and food service facilities which are found on West Englewood Ave. between Queen Anne Rd. and Palisade Ave. The fact that the primary owner/operator of the retail establishments on that one block is DM Elie Y. Katz is well-known and has been broadly discussed throughout the Town. Indeed this fact had been discussed by the Planning Board on 8/25.


We return to Thursday night, 12/8: With Council having Introduced this ordinance at its 11/22 meeting, all that remained to be done was to 1) get the Planning Board (PB) to review it on that Thursday evening, as required by state statute, to assure consistency with the Town’s Master Plan); and 2) get 4 members of the current Council to vote to adopt the ordinance at this coming meeting Tuesday, December 13.


This Council vote appeared assured; but what about the PB’s review?



To start with the Town’s website had listed the following as the PB meeting’s final agenda item:

As Teaneck Voices reported last week (Click Here), the PB, at its August 25 meeting, had decisively approved (4-1-1) a resolution which stated that the prior Cafes ordinance was inconsistent with the Master Plan. 


How would the Board handle this nearly identical ordinance that Council refused to let die?

Answer: It wouldn’t and didn’t! 


When late in the evening the Ordinance was finally to be reviewed, Town Planner Hughes began a description of the ordinance but was very quickly interrupted when several board members referenced ongoing litigation that involves the current Town ordinance. When the PB heard that that litigation had remained unresolved – continued until January -a motion was immediately made, seconded and voted unanimously to table another consideration of the ordinance. A motion to adjourn followed seconds later. For those interested, this bit of PB drama is now available via a very short video (Click Here)


Why would that matter?


The answer lies in State Statute, “40:55D-31 - Review by Planning Board.” This statute prohibits Council from acting on the introduced Cafes Ordinance unless the PB had 1) sent the Council its guidance or 2) 45 days had passed since the ordinance was introduced. As confirmed by the clerk the next day (12/9), the PB had not sent Council any guidance by tabling rather than reviewing the Cafes ordinance. By doing so, the PB (whether or not it intended to do so) had forced the Clerk to remove the vote on the ordinance’s adoption from the 12/13 Council agenda. And as the image below confirms, by the next day the ordinance had disappeared from the Council agenda. Since 12/13 is the final meeting of this Council, any Cafes Ordinance would have to begin anew in the new year with a new Council. Stay tuned! 

A BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT VACANCY -

BUT FILLED BY WHAT PROCESS

Update: No mention was made on 12/13 of the competing resolutions proposed to fill a vacancy in the membership of the Teaneck Board of Adjustment until seconds before adjournment of  Council’s final 2022 meeting.  

At that point, Mayor Dunleavy then reported that Council had discussed not voting on either Res. 312 and 312. A roll call motion not to consider the 2 Resolutions was then quickly passed though nowhere was the subject matter of the numbered resolutions identified. 

The background on this odd ending is explained in the

article published by Teaneck Voices on 12/12.


Clearly increasing the diversity of Teaneck’s statutory and advisory board memberships was a major issue in the Council election in November. There may be a final play on this issue at Council on 12/13



Near the end of the Council Agenda for Tuesday are found two resolutions which are explicitly defined as not part of the Consent Agenda. Resolutions 312 and 313 would each, if passed, elect a nominated resident to the same vacancy on the Township’s Board of Adjustment. But there is only a single vacancy. The image below depicts this anomaly.

How would this be resolved? The Council advocates for each of these nominations were identified when the nominations were made at the outset of the 11/22/22 Council meeting (Click Here on the Town’s video and go to min 25&29sec.). Presumably Mayor Dunleavy would first recognize a Council member whose resolution nominated the candidate he preferred and if that resolution received 4 votes, the candidate would be elected to the Board of Adjustment. End of story. 

But there is one problem with this scenario: it violates the Town code. There are established procedures for how statutory board vacancies are to be made known so that eligible applicants can seek to be nominated. Indeed, there is a process for statutory board appointments that begins with the public announcement 14 days before Council takes any action. (Click Here and go to Rule 9 – or read the code language below). 


In other words, Council is precluded from using either Res 312 or 313 on Tuesday 12/13 to fill the vacancy created by Atif Rehman’s 9/12/2022 BofA resignation - and legally Council could not even begin to do so until 12/15.  

But no additional Council meetings are scheduled for 2022.

Filling the Board of Adjustment vacancy must await the new Council – as Councilwoman Rice requested on 11/22/2022.


It should be noted that if the new Council were to follow its own best tradition, it would move the 1st alternate member, James Brown, into full B of A membership, move the other 3 alternates up one and make any new appointment a 4th alternate.

---------------------------------------------

CHARTER/ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 2;  Attachment 1 Appendix I; Council Rules of Procedure

Rule IX. Appointments by Council. (a) Statutory boards, commissions and agencies.

(1) Subject to Subsection (c), at least two weeks prior to the filling of any vacancies in statutory boards, commissions and agencies, the Clerk shall notify the public about the vacancies and shall make forms available to the public for application or nomination to such vacant positions. Upon notice to all persons submitting applications for such vacant positions, pursuant to Subsection (c) hereof, Council members shall meet at a meeting to discuss any vacancies on all statutory boards, commissions or agencies and, at the request of a majority of Council members at such meeting, interviews for vacancies may be held in accordance with law. No votes will be taken at such meeting, but a majority of Council may, subject to Subsection (c), nominate as many candidates as there are vacancies to be filled, and the Clerk will make a list of all such nominations. At a later regular Council meeting, Council members will formally vote on those candidates previously nominated and will, subject to Subsection (c), fill all vacancies on such statutory boards. 

THIS WEEK IN AINR REDEVELOPMENT

Update: At the 12/13 Council meeting itself - in both the public hearing and in G&W portions, many residents referenced aspects of the Town's use of Areas in Need of Redevelopment (AINRs) as a set of procedures regularly used to implement development in the Township. The Town's employment of AINR's was sharply criticized by every speaker who sited AINRs


Virtually every Council or Planning Board meeting agenda in 2022 has called for still another step in Teaneck’s newly-preferred development procedure (Areas in Need of Redevelopment) that circumvents most of the normal public notice and other Town development and Master Plan regulations:

This year has seen Council and the Planning Board approve at least one of each of the following steps:


·       Have the Planning Board agree – after a secret Council process - to designate an area or a lot as blighted


·       Get some unnamed developer - working with a Council sub-committee - to propose a development plan for that area


·       Have Council and the Planning Board approve the development plan – typically without identifying that developer


·       When that developer asks the Town for huge tax breaks (to let it make Payments in Lieu of Taxes), the Council agrees without providing the public with either the developer’s rationale or why the Town agrees to it.·

      

  • The developer is finally identified when its company submits a site plan and if the Planning Board approves it, the developer proceeds at its own pace to build and operate the project or facility


For example, lets look at this week and last:


At the Planning Board meeting on December 8, a brand new company, Teaneck Urban Renewal Phase 2 – which in November got approval for its very lucrative PILOT – submitted a site plan for approval of its 247 unit project on at 359 Alfred Avenue. The company is owned by the same developer that has full site plan and PILOT approval for the next door lot's even-larger facility. Where guests of the residents of the new facility will park remains completely unresolved. Just before the PB voted site plan approval, the fact that Teaneck Urban Renewal Phase 2 does not yet own the current 359 Alfred facility emerged. The firm’s attorney said it had a contract to purchase the facility if all the public sector approvals work out. 


At the Council meeting on December 13, another of these AINR steps will be on display:


Council will be asked to adopt Ordinance 49-2022. It is a development plan for a tall facility at 140 State Street which will have inadequate parking, which parking problem, DM Schwartz told the Planning Board last Thursday can be solved by Council giving the [still unnamed] developer a PILOT, the result of which will enable that developer to build a new parking lot – on town property down the street. Presumably the developer will get that property for free. This Schwartz announcement was made at the 12/8 planning board meeting where no town video was made and only one member of the public spoke. You can hear how it went down if you Click Here for a 6 minute video produced by a resident. It is worth your while, reader, to take these few minutes to step inside the actual decision-making process .


The voting public has just sent the message: The memberships of Council and the Planning Board - and many other entities - must be expanded with residents who can open up these processes so that the public can understand their rationales and require data to evaluate their costs and benefits. 

We may be on the verge of precisely that way of governing.


In the meantime, one hopes that the current rush to AINR development and its give-them-all- tax- break corollaries will not have ruined our Town’s financial future and destroyed what it was that brought us all to Teaneck. 


THIS WEEK IN TEANECK - PUBLIC MEETINGS

This Week in Teaneck –12/12 to 18/2022

 

Teaneck Council – Tuesday 12/13/2022 at 8:00 pm Hybrid: In-person in Council Chambers and by zoom Click Here and use passcode 239676. Agenda available if you Click Here

This is the final meeting prior to the 1/3/2022 reorganization of Council where newly-elected Council members will be sworn in. We expect unusual procedures during thr 12/13 meeting: whether Council seeks to fill a vacancy recently created on the Board of Adjustment. Discussion of more AINR PILOTS; No action on Outdoor Cafes Ordinance. See related stories.


Cedar Lane Management Group Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 6:30 pm


  • No other access, meeting location or agenda information is available


Teaneck Board of Education Regular Meeting- Wednesday, December 14 at 8:00 pm. The meeting will be conducted both in person ((presumably in the Cheryl Miller-Porter Student Center inside Teaneck High) and virtually via ZOOM. Zoom link TBD. Agenda: to be Posted (presumably if you Click Here).

Contacting Teaneck Voices


By Email: teaneckvoices@gmail.com

By Phone: 201-214-4937

By USPS Mail: Teaneck Voices, PO Box 873. at 1673 Palisade Ave. 07666

Teaneck Voices' Website is www.teaneckvoices.com



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