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SENIOR CENTER WOES FRONT & CENTER


PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

3/6/2023

Contents:


Senior Center Woes Front & Center

An Op Ed by Resident Laraine Chaberski

The Week that Was - Planning Board; PPRAB; & Bd of Adjustment

What's Actually Happened in the Holy Name Site Plan Hearings

This Week in Teaneck - Including PB Scheduling Chaos

Are You Prepared to Help Shape the 2023 Muni Budget ?

Still Seeking the Answers - Revisited Q's from February 5


Announcements:

  • Applications for Site Plan Review Advisory Board
  • Teaneck International Festival - Film 7 Talkback - 3/15
  • LWV Women's History Month Program - 3/20
  • Makers Day - Library - 3/26


Contacting Teaneck Voices

SENIOR CENTER WOES FRONT & CENTER

An Op ed by Resident Laraine Chaberski


The Senior Center in the Rodda Community Center used to be one of the bright active spots in Teaneck beloved by the approximately 900 participants who enjoyed lunch, took classes, played games, learned to knit, etc in the building. This is a description of our former Senior Center. Not the one we have today. 

 

When you arrived in the morning there was an urn filled with hot coffee. Cups, sugar and milk were supplied. At times someone would bring in donuts or cookies to share. Women and men played games such as Mahjong, Rummikub, and Bridge at tables in the large room known as the multi-purpose room. Conversation was lively and friendly disputes broke out over game rules..

 

A variety of exercise and educational classes began at 10:00 am. Lunch was served at 11:30. If you could afford the cost you paid $1.25. If not, lunch was free. Lunch time was a great socialization time for seniors and provided a nutritionally balanced meal for those who wanted and or needed it. 

 

From time to time we had speakers at lunchtime. I remember a speaker from the Bergen County Division on Aging who explained how to apply for Medicare and answered questions the group had. Another speaker talked about the importance of exercise and how to arrange for a physical therapist to visit you at home. Other topics addressed were how to get help with property taxes and completing income tax forms. 

 

There were parties to celebrate holidays. We had a decorated Christmas tree with wrapped presents underneath. There was a Menorah with candles to be lit. A special lunch was provided. 


The Improv/Drama group performed , the ballroom dancers danced, as did the line dancers. The creative writing group compiled a short book of their stories and distributed it. The art classes displayed their work on easels around the room. Clay sculptures were in another room as were knit pieces and quilts created by imaginative and patient seniors. 

 

Friends and relatives were able to view the work displayed. It was a time to be recognized and admired for what you produced. 

 

I know that I am forgetting to list all that took place in the past when the Senior Center felt alive and active. Today the place is cold and lifeless. No coffee, no lunch, no games. You can take only two classes so you check in and leave when your class is over. I think many seniors depended on the center to combat loneliness since they lived alone. And I am certain that the lunch helped the “food-insecure”. 

 

I know the pandemic made it necessary to curtail activities but other Senior Centers in Bergen County are resuming their programs. What is wrong with Teaneck that we are providing only the minimum? And why is it so difficult to get answers when we ask why this is so..


THE WEEK THAT WAS - Planning Board; PPRAB; & Bd of Adjustment

The Week that Was- 2/27 to 3/5 2023


Planning Board – Tuesday 2/28 at the Rodda Center. Another extended hearing on the proposed Holy Name day care center (the first of the two Site Plans proposed by the HN under its revised [and court-contested] hospital zone expansion ordinance [Ord 22-2022). 

Despite having had two hearing sessions that “counted”, none of the applicant’s experts have apparently completed their testimony. They have been relentlessly cross-examined by the Neighbor’s attorney, Robert Simon. Hence promised answers to prior questions, commitment to provide additional data and/or exhibits and exploration of whether all the required variances have been identified have combined to suggest that the three newly-scheduled additional March HNMC hearings may not be enough even to complete a decision on the first of the two proposed site plans.

Only about 20 of audience members not associated with applicant HN were in attendance in this “in-person only” meeting. A Town video was, however, posted on the website (Click Here).Meanwhile the litigation about the validity of the Ordinance itself remains in limbo.

No hint of when the Planning Board will take up the seriously overdue Open Space Recreation Plan (OSRP) approval has been mentioned by the Chair who the new by-laws authorize to establish the Board’s agenda.



Parks, Playgrounds and Recreation Advisory Board (PPRAB) – This Wednesday 3/1meeting consisted of a series of brief reports whose subject matter had been strung together in the agenda distributed 8 hours before the meeting. A bare quorum of the Board’s members attended and no action or vote on any issue was taken. A good set of minutes from both this meeting and its predecessor would provide a useful report to the public about what advice this Board has and now would give to Council as the governing body makes muni budget decisions about where Township parks and recreation $ should be focused.


Board of Adjustment – Thursday’s 3/2 meeting had been scheduled two applications. The first was seeking approval for a major renovation of residential property (which the Board sent back with a recommendation that it be scaled down) and then primarily to hear traffic experts to continue the 61 Church Street site plan hearing on the applicant’s proposal seeking approval of a change of use to a private high school on this lot of a former church. (The lot itself is located in an R/S, a single-family residential zone.)


However, when discussion of the 61 Church Street application began, substitute meeting chair Harvey Rosen announced at the outset that 13 lot neighbors had just retained land use attorney Gail Price who in turn had agreed with applicant attorney Jason Tuvel before the meeting that she would be given time to study the case and then in subsequent hearings be permitted to cross-examine the applicant’s witnesses who had previously testified.


Nicholas Verderese of Dynamic Traffic testified that the traffic related to the proposed school’s 100 students and small faculty would have no significant impact on traffic safety or flows. He based his analysis primarily on a traffic study done on June 15, 2022 in the mid-afternoon. Perhaps 30 of the 183 participants attending this meeting by zoom posed questions of Verderese related both to his methodology and conclusions.


Zoom video recording of this meeting is available (Click Here) and discussion of the 61 Church Street application begins at minute 57 of this 3 hour tape. Neighborhood concerns about this application have been building since its inception on February 2 which attracted about 150 participants.


This hearing will now be continued (with no further notice to the public) to the Board’s next regularly scheduled meeting on April 27, 2023 by zoom at 7: pm when, as noted, Attorney Price will be able to cross the applicant’s prior witnesses and testimony by the applicant’s planner (presumably Stephen Lydon) will be heard. 

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

IN THE HOLY NAME SITE PLAN HEARINGS?


The answer? We still 4 ½ months later do not know the answer.

Why? A Chronology of events explains why!


October 10/27/2022 - The initial PB hearings are convened to consider two proposed HNMC site plans that would enable the HNMC to implement the HN hospital’s expanded zone specified in the 22-2022 Ordinance finally adopted (after 2 tries) by Council on June 28, 2022. 

 

·       This October 2022 hearing was conducted in-person only in Gym 2 of the Rodda Center – without any video and only audio transcription. It lasted more than 4 hours. No court reporter was present.


  • For reasons never made public, the audio failed. After a considerable delay, it was apparently decided to completely scuttle the original hearing and literally begin all over again – but not until January 26, 2023.

 

January 26, 2023 – This repeat “initial” site plan application hearing was conducted at the direction of PB Chair Bodner – again in Gym 2 of the Rodda Center and in-person only. Again only audio (no official video equipment nor simultaneous internet transmission) was used. This time a certified court reporter was present at the behest of applicant HNMC but HNMC had not yet (at the end of the hearing) ordered production of a transcript.

 

·       For reasons not yet made public, the audio recording AGAIN failed. (The Township website has an audio recording that is blank until 4+ minute at the end Click Here) Inferentially, the PB Chair indicated that the Township had agreed to pay for the production of a full transcript by the court reporter.


·       A private citizen had soon after the 1/26 meeting posted a complete 3 hr42 min video of the entire hearing (Click Here) which by default became the only electronic record of the hearing.



February 23, 2023 - At a regular in person meeting of the PB (conducted in Council Chambers and video recorded by the town (Click Here) but not (on instructions from Chair Bodner) simultaneously available on internet, Chair Bodner announced the availability of a 280 page transcript notarized by the certified court reporter. It had been distributed to PB members just several hours earlier. Bodner proposed that the transcript be adopted as the official minutes of the 1/26 hearing. (Board Secretary Thompson was absent and, it turns out, had not been informed of the minutes adoption plan). PB member Belcher said she had not yet read the transcript and Bodner then proposed that adoption of the 1/26/2023 hearing minutes be delayed until the next meeting.

 

January 28, 2023 – At the onset of what was scheduled as the first continuation of the hearing on the HNMC site plans, another discussion of the minutes of the 1/26/2023 initial hearing began with the Chair again proposing adoption of the transcript as minutes.


Both PB members Belcher and Thompson noted mistakes early in the court reporter’s transcript which Bodner proposed be fixed. He withdrew the proposal to amend the transcript when cautioned by conflict attorney Kelly that a notarized transcript could not legally be amended. PB then assigned Secretary Thompson to create official minutes from undefined sources.

 

·       This meeting, was conducted in person only at the Rodda Center but with a Town video (Click Here) Discussion of how to get official minutes for the initial HNMC site plan hearings can be viewed early at minutes 4-7 of the Town video. Presumably Thompson’s new minutes will be proposed in the March 8 or 9 PB meeting.

 

March 2, 2023 13 members of the HNMC neighbors signed a letter to Board Clerk McClean reporting their examination of a key 3-page portion of the court reporter’s transcript had found it seriously in error and it should not be relied on to accurately reflect what occurred on 1/26/2023. 


Their review used the only electronic recording of that meeting (the private video on You Tube - Click Here). The neighbors attached both a revised transcript of the 3 pages but also one which includes both their version and the court reporter’s version of those pages.


Voices has reviewed that material and believes the neighbor-reviewed version is accurate and the court reporter’s is not. The neighbors 3/2 letter can be reviewed in its entirety on the Teaneck Voices website at (Click Here)

 

Put simply, 4 ½ months after the initial HNMC hearing attempt (10/27/2022) there exists no approved minutes or account of any HNMC site plan hearing. 

THIS WEEK IN TEANECK

Cedar Lane Management Group – Wednesday March 8, 2023 at 6:30 pm in-person at 455 Cedar Lane, Suite 4


Youth Advisory Board – Wednesday March 8 at 7:00 pm in MP-4 at the Rodda Center. No agenda info available


  •  Special Note on  the two back-to-back Planning Board Meetings on both Wednesday and Thursday nights at 7:00 pm. There has been a major confusion about what will occur at each of these meetings. Due in part to notices that have appeared not only in the designated public notice newspapers but in other print media as well. Voices believes it has sorted out the confusion and if you have 3 minutes watch this You Tube (Click Here) to get the official  statement on PB meeting agendas.


Planning Board Special Meeting – Wednesday March 8 at 7:00 pm In-person only in MP-1 the Rodda Center. Continuation of hearings on Site Plans for HNMC. See related Voices story in this edition.


Planning Board Regular Meeting – Thursday March 9 at 7:00 pm In-person only in MP-1 at the Rodda Center. NO AGENDA INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE FOR THIS MEETING EXCEPT THAT IT WILL NOT INCLUDE CONTINUATION OF THE Holy Name Site plans


Council Budget Meeting – Thursday March 9 at 7:00 pm in-person in Council Chambers and by hybrid zoom access (Click Here and type passcode 258141)See related Voices story on Budget Prep in this edition. 

ARE YOU PREPARED TO HELP SHAPE THE MUNI BUDGET?

 On Thursday night, March 9 at 7:00 pm Teaneck’s first “budget meeting” will begin. It will be both in-person at Council Chambers and hybrid zoom (Click Here and type password 258141)


Essentially nothing about the budget has been said publicly since the Manager conducted required public departmental hearings early last November. Given the size of requests made by various departments in those meetings, it became clear that Teaneck’s municipal budget was headed for a significant increase, irrespective of who had won the Council elections – a fact verbally acknowledged at the time by Manager Kazinci.


On Thursday, following brief descriptions of what Town departments do by their directors, the Manager will again present his annual budget proposal for calendar year 2023. His annual Power Point will in all likelihood follow the same presentation sequence as in past years. As the slides fly by, residents would be well advised to be prepared to understand what is emerging for 2023.


Presumably the best preparations would be to review what Dean Kazinci presented in last year’s Power Point Budget Presentation (Click Here) To see where & how the budget gets fleshed out, the best document that teaches us about the budget is the State-required User Friendly Budget -and last year’s 2022 version of it is found if you Click Here.



  • It would have been useful for those who are willing to deeply explore the numbers to have the 2022 Annual Financial Statement but as we go to press, that document (due to the State last Friday) has not yet made it to the Town website.



In his presentation, the Manager will relate his proposed budget to our property taxes using the same basic allocations as have been set for most of us since 2015. As the assessor explained several weeks ago, the reallocation study now under way will give us all a very different property tax landscape and it will be used in the 2024 budget calculations.


There will be three more Thursday evening budget meetings this year – March 16, 23 and 30. Precisely how those meetings will schedule departmental explanations of their individual 2023 budgets has not yet been made public. The schedule is typically laid out in the final several pages of the Manager’s PP Once we all find out which parts of the budget will be when, we can plan to use the G&W portions at the start of the relevant budget meeting to advocate to Council what to add, increase, or cut. 


What follows is an image of the schedule of budget requirements set for 2023 by the State’s Department of Community Affairs 

STILL SEEKING ANSWERS - REVISITED Q'S FROM FEBRUARY 5

Revisited Questions: Teaneck Voices Is Still Seeking the Answers

We posted these questions in our February 5, 2023 Newsletter. It’s Now One Month Later, March 6, 2023 – Same Questions, Different Commentary


What better time to ask questions than at Budget Time?

When will lunches and social activities resume at the Rodda Senior Center?


Teaneck Voices asked the Director why these activities haven’t resumed. In regard to the food service, we were told that post-Covid, staff members were required to take courses in food service safety. Some of Teaneck’s staff have completed the requirement, and successful inspection approvals by 3-levels of government (state, county and Town) are apparently required. Resumption of lunches may occur when summer classes begin.


The impact on seniors of the “missing” Senior Center services in post-pandemic Teaneck is well described in resident Laraine Chaberski’s lead article in today’s Teaneck Voices  .


Teaneck Voices Request:

Since Teaneck Voices learned that there are NO financial issues delaying lunches, we suggest hiring a certified food service organization like one serving our schools. For example, could the township add the Senior Center at the Rodda to the Teaneck Public School Roster and have the daily lunch delivered for seniors Monday through Friday?


It is critical to the physical and mental health of our Teaneck senior citizens that they be actively engaged in enjoyable activities with their peers and eat healthy meal on a daily basis.

 

The following questions, and many more, reflect ongoing projects. Teaneck Voices requests that a once monthly Council Workshop Session be established at which a Councilmember reviews each ongoing project (perhaps kept on a giant wall chart) and reports on its progress. Here are the questions from February 5, followed by a few additions for the wall chart:


What is the status of the senior affordable housing and center at 1425 Teaneck Road?



o  How many units will go to Teaneck residents?

o  Will the first floor health and recreation center be open to all Teaneck seniors?

o  When will this facility be completed?

 

When will the new Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) arrive?

o  Who will deliver the training?

o  Who will be trained?

o  Where will they be stored?

o  Will they be available at every Teaneck sporting event?

o  How will they get there?

o  Who will be responsible?

o  What can we learn from the purchases and use of AEDs by the Teaneck Public Schools District?

What happened to the plan for Mixed-Use Zoning on Cedar Lane as specified in the Master Plan?

o  Unchanged from the 2007 Master Plan is the agreement that Cedar Lane would develop 3-story buildings with ground floors solely retail, 2nd floor offices or apartments, and 3rd floor apartments.

o  There is agreement that Cedar Lane, Teaneck’s main shopping avenue, desperately needs revitalization.

o  The present plan, UNSUPPORTED BY ANY RESIDENT IN ANY G&W SESSION OR ELSEWHERE, is to declare the hub of the “Lane,” Garrison and Cedar Lane, a blighted Area in Need of Development (AINR), and to erect tall apartment buildings and hi-rise parking structures.

o  Can Teaneck residents stop an AINR?

 

What is happening with Holy Name Medical Center Expansion?

o  What is the status of the law suit brought by the Good Neighbors?

o  Why is Holy Name being allowed to seek Planning Board site plan approvals based on the contested Ordinance 22-2022 while the litigation is continuing and the judge has ordered mediation of the dispute.

o  Is what is threatened to the Good Neighbors likely to happen to others in Teaneck?

 

What is happening with the construction on Alfred Avenue and its intrusion into

Teaneck and Englewood residential areas?

 

When is Council Going to Honor Retired Senator Loretta Weinberg ?

o  Residents have asked that Argonne Park be renamed for Senator Weinberg. Their second choice is the Municipal Building, third choice is the Council Chambers.

When will the Cannabis decisions be made?

 

When will Backyard Chicken decisions be made?

 

Teaneck Voices and its readers look forward to seeing the Teaneck Project Wall Chart and hearing the Council discussions at a monthly Workshop session.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Township of Teaneck New Jersey - Advisory Board and Statutory Board Application (teanecknj.gov)

2023 Teaneck International Film Festival Documentary Series Tickets | Eventbrite

Webinar Registration - Zoom

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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