|
The bizarre public portions of the Thursday 7/13 Planning Board meeting lasted less than 55 minutes – but the meeting stretched over 2 hours & 25 minutes from 7:00 to 9:25 pm.
When it was over, the Board had:
· officially sworn in the two new Class IV members and a new alternate chosen by Council to replace three Board member/alternates whose terms expired on June 30;
· unanimously selected a new slate of the 3 Board officers (with four Board members abstaining from all 3 votes) and reappointed its recently newly-designated attorney and its long-time Board clerk;
· approved a resolution constituting the defendant Board’s approval of the settlement of the Neighbor’s litigation challenging the Holy Name hospital zone expansion – which approval means that 3 of the 4 parties to the litigation have fully approved the settlement; and
· scheduled a new special meeting for July 25 to take up whatever remains of the Holy Name Medical Center site plan applications that are still before the Board after the settlement has been fully approved by all four parties.
Certainly these were significant achievements for a land use board that had achieved virtually nothing for the previous nine months!!
As well, the attention to and completion of these delayed tasks signals an additional important step in the multi-year struggle to reconcile the legal differences between the hospital and its neighbors about future hospital expansion. In fact, the final step should be complete with the notarized signatures of the 11 neighbor plaintiffs yet to sign the one-inch thick settlement resolution to which the public is still not privy.
Teaneck Voices urges its readers to take the time to watch the one hour video of this meeting Click Here. For the first public meeting portion the 9-member /2-alternate Board had 10 members/alternates in attendance – only Tom Rowe, the Manager’s appointee as the Board’s Class II member is absent.
Skip the video’s first 8 minutes of pre-meeting prep and go to the opening of the meeting after which the then Chair Joey Bodner for some reason asks Mayor Pagan to swear in the new Board members.
Chris Brown sworn in as a Class IV member
Lucria Ortiz sworn in as a Class IV member
Duane Harley sworn in as the number 2 Board alternate
After the swearing in, there were then 8 members and 2 alternates (Belcher, Bodner, Brown, Kohn, Ortiz, Pagan, Stern, Thomson with alternates Greene and Harley) Next– as announced by Attorney Kelly – were to be nominations for the annual election of the 3 Board officers – all of whom must, by code, be from among the 6 Class IV Board members.
There was but a single nomination for the Board Chair: Howard Thompson who had capably served for years as Board Secretary. His nomination was made by Class III member Denise Belcher and seconded by Chris Brown. A roll call vote followed in which 6 members/alternates voted for Thompson, but 4 members abstained. Thompson was elected Chair: 6 yes; no no’s; 4 abstaining.
There was also but a single nomination for the Board Vice-Chair: Chris Brown. It was made by Class III member Denise Belcher and seconded by Howard Thompson. A roll call vote followed in which 6 members/alternates voted for Brown, but 4 members abstained. Brown was elected Chair: 6 yes; no no’s; 4 abstaining.
There was also but a single nomination for the Board Secretary: Lucria Ortiz. It was made by Class I member Michael Pagan and seconded by Chair Howard Thompson. A roll call vote followed in which 6 members/alternates voted for Ortiz, but 4 members abstained. Ortiz was elected Secretary: 6 yes; no no’s; 4 abstaining.
Quickly and without further ado, the Board roll-call unanimously approved the existing by-laws, Attorney Kevin Kelly (who had first been selected conflict attorney and in June made full Board attorney) was unanimously selected Board attorney and Rosiland McLean was unanimously selected Board Clerk. Both will serve until June 30, 2024.
Attorney Kelly then got approval to add to the agenda a resolution to memorialize the reorganization results and a resolution to approve the hospital settlement. This addition to the agenda ended the meeting portion carried on zoom and the Board then approved going into closed session to receive legal advice.
Kelly predicted the closed session would last for 25 minutes. He announced that those watching on zoom would not be able to watch any post-closed session gathering because prior Holy Name matters has not been simultaneously available on Zoom.
Two Board members (Stern and Kohn) then excused themselves as they have been excluded from all the Holy Name related procedures due to conflicts.
Kelly’s predicted a 25-minute closed session but, in fact, the session lasted for one hour and 25- minutes. During that period Kelly twice came out to consult with hospital attorneys. As the public waited, three members of the 11-member plaintiffs group appeared and signed, in front of a notary, the settlement resolution.
When the 8-member Board reappeared at 8:50, it then passed the reorganization memorialization and the settlement resolution – unanimously. Hospital attorney Berger suggested that the Board not continue that night the scheduled hearing on the hospital site plans until the settlement was fully executed by all signers.
Attorney Kelly announced that the plaintiff’s attorney had predicted that all plaintiff signatures would be obtained by Monday July 24. It was, therefore, agreed that a special meeting of the Board be called for July 25 to complete the Board’s HNMC applications work.
The meeting’s requisite Good and Welfare session lasted 16 minutes as members of the public pressed the Board for better listening, more transparency and a return to the kind of hybrid or zoom formats that have successfully worked for Council and other statutory boards. The Mayor thanked former Board Chair Bodner for his years of service and leadership and the Board adjourned.
SO how and where – after all this - does the elusive HNMC-Neighbors litigation settlement stand?
The litigation had since summer of 2022 involved four parties – all of whom have been involved for the past 5 months in mediation efforts to avoid a full-fledged trial. Remember, the Neighbors (Akerman, et.al. v. Township of Teaneck, et. al.)) had sued the Town and Planning Board alleging conflicts of interest and other violations in the Town’s hospital expansion zoning approval processes. HNMC was granted Court approval to be included in the suit’s process because of its interests in the potential results of that litigation;
For several months rumors of mediation progress were followed by reported breakdowns in a potential settlement whose actual scope is still not in the public record.
The concrete steps toward actual settlement began when the Township attorney indicated that a settlement was ready and recommended that Council at its June 27 meeting approve Resolution 213-2023 which authorized the Mayor to sign the undisclosed settlement and approved several legal expenditures associated with the litigation. Reportedly, the Mayor signed a settlement resolution on behalf of the Town sometime in the first week in July.
Thereafter (date not yet disclosed, but likely during the week of July 10) the Hospital signed this same resolution which apparently includes some deed restriction provisions assuring neighbors about current and future hospital zone expansion.
At 3:50 on the afternoon of July 13, PB attorney Kelly received notice from the plaintiff’s attorney that he believed all of his 14 plaintiffs would sign and would have been able to sign the settlement by July 24. In fact, during the PB’s closed session, 3 of those plaintiff’s came to Rodda’s MP-1 and signed the settlement document provided to the plaintiffs by Attorney Kelly.
This same resolution with attached settlement was then what apparently was explained to the Planning Board during its closed session – during which the fact that 3 plaintiffs had signed was relayed to the closed-session PB.
At 8:50pm, the 8-member Planning Board came back into public session and unanimously approved the settlement to be signed by its new chair.
Voices has been working to understand this byzantine process throughout. We have covered every minute of every public meeting where it has been addressed. Press and social media accounts to the contrary, it is still not fully a done deal. But we believe this important issue is on a clear path to completion and are anxious to congratulate the new Mayor, Council and its new attorney for getting this important issue resolved.
And Voices will of course review the actual settlement for our readers when it is finally released.
| 
