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TEANECK VOICES LISTENS: 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

Contents View this issue in your browserAre AINRs a Waste of Time and Money


Teaneck Voices Listens: 3 Letters to the Editor

·        Letter to the Editor from Dr. Henry J. Pruitt

·        Letter to the Editor from David Schlussel

·        Letter to the Editor from Senator Loretta Weinberg

What Should Candidates Standing for Election Do When They Are Lied About?

More about the 3 Ways to Vote Now in Teaneck

Additional Information about Teaneck’s 2022 Candidates

Does the S&S Settlement Bind Future Redevelopment? Yes!

What a Week it Was at Teaneck Public Meetings

Upcoming Public Meetings – 10/31 to 11/6

Events at the Library


Announcements


  • Contacting Teaneck Voices

TEANECK VOICES LISTENS:

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM DR. HENRY J. PRUITT

The False Promise Made by the Current Township Council.

For the last eight years, this council has kept the residential property tax flat.


This practice put the residents to sleep and caused them to continue to elect council persons who kept this promise. When they woke up they found hundreds of new residents intown and plans in place to bring in many more hundreds of new residents with no plan to enhance the infrastructure so that we could continue to keep the quality suburban life style that we all moved here for, intact.


When a community’s infrastructure is exceeded, congestion in all aspects of community will take place. Let us examine the true beneficiaries of this flat tax.

Developers come to communities where they can make the most profit. They are not concerned about the quality of life. 


Let us imagine that regular residents were required to pay an additional one percent on their taxes:

Tax liability is $10,000 annually

A one percent increase is $100.00

An eight-year increase is approximately $800 00.

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

By contrast, let us imagine a commercial tax liability of $5,000,000.

A one percent increase is approximately $50,000.00

An eight-year increase is approximately $400,000.00      


In the case of these commercial properties the one percent increase which would have been in the expense column is retained in the profit column of the ledger. But that is just the start of how our town now manages its relationships with developers.


Developers are particularly interested in communities who declare Areas in Need of Improvement (AINRs) and opportunities where the township government is interested in providing them with Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs). Both of these designations allow for tax breaks and the suspension some of the usual state mandated requirements such as the selection of the lowest bidder. So those breaks mean that we regular taxpayers make up the difference while the developers add additional increments to their bottom line profits.


Most of us moved to Teaneck to take advantage of the numerous amenities offered by this township that are not offered by surrounding townships. We made the decision to pay higher taxes to support these amenities to ensure a quality suburban life style. 

·        Full time paid fire department.

·        Library

·        Volunteer ambulance corps

·        Recreation Center, Parks and Open Spaces

·        Manageable traffic flow

·        Accessible commuter bus capacities

·        Low density housing

·        Professional Police department

·        Uncrowded public and private schools

·        DPW

Even were dense development to bring real revenue to the township, overdevelopment destroys the suburban quality of life in the community.


Adding a couple of thousand new residents to the community without any plans to upgrade the community’s infrastructure and deficiencies will quickly eliminate the quality of life reasons for moving here in the first place.


·        It will take the fire department just a little bit longer to get to your fire

·        The library will become a less responsive facility.

·        The volunteer ambulance will take longer to get to your emergency.

·        Many people will not be able to attend the programs that they are interested in because of limited capacity at the recreation center.



·        Traffic congestion: Teaneck roads are mostly two lanes in both directions but narrow down to one lane often.

  •   It is almost impossible to safely make a left turn on North Teaneck Road from any of the side streets that do not have traffic signals. There is no plan to widen this roadway.
  •   Route 4 narrows down to two lanes east bound in Teaneck causing a traffic problem. There are no immediate plans to widen route 4 east bound in Teaneck. 
  •   If plans go forward to develop the Stop and Shop area this will cause a traffic problem on Cedar Lane.
  •   If plans go forward to add density to State Street and Teaneck Road and West Englewood Avenue and the site of the old recreation center at 1425 Teaneck Road this will cause very serious traffic concerns in an area that is already under stress due to high traffic volume.
  •   If the DPW site on River Road is developed with multi-family apartment buildings it will cause traffic concerns on River Road. Additionally due to the contamination and flooding problems at this site, the developers, in order to make a profit the buildings will have to be so tall that they will cast a shadow on the homes on the other side of River Road from noon to sunset every day.

·        New Jersey Transit has already maxed out on commuter bus capacity on Teaneck Road and more people will have to use their cars to get to work.


This council has rejected proposals to develop low density one family housing. Instead during the past eight years it has:


COMPLETED: the extended stay hotel, 1500 Teaneck Road, 1475 Palisade Avenue, the Avalon Bay project on Windsor Road, the small development on Teaneck Road and Fort Lee Road and the small development on New Bridge Road.


IN PROGRESS:

The HOLUBA townhouse project, the developments on Alfred Avenue (with their Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) arrangements).


PROPOSED PROJECTS

The Stop and Shop area development will cause a significant access and egress problem and a major traffic concern on Cedar Lane.

The proposed additional developments on State Street and the senior citizens project on Teaneck Road will seriously impact a neighborhood that is already over-crowded.

The designation of State Street and the Stop and Shop Areas Need of Redevelopment (AINR’s) open the door for developers to ignore the usual bidding requirements and pay less than the annual assessed valuation for the property.


We need a new set of eyes to lead our community and to maintain a suburban quality of life.

·        We need to move away from using dense development to meet our tax liabilities.

We should utilize available opportunities to develop single family homes. This will enhance the suburban quality of life.

·        The township momentarily had an opportunity to expand the recreation center but we did not follow through on that opportunity. The new council should look for other ways to expand this facility.

·        We need to work with the county to expand Teaneck Road to two lanes in both directions from Liberty Road to Fort Lee Road. This may require a few feet of the public right of way on both sides of the road.

·        We need to work with the state to expand route 4 to three east bound lanes to reduce congestion as it enters Teaneck.

·        We need to work with New Jersey Transit to increase the number of commuter busses on Teaneck Road during rush hour.

·        We need to seek a Power Purchase Agreement with an electric company to put solar panels over municipal parking lots and other available practical sites. This could come at no cost to the township but would provide us with a much lower public electric bill.

·        We need to seek out high end retail stores for our shopping areas. (like Englewood). This would keep more of our shoppers in town. Star Bucks was once very interested in coming to Cedar Lane but the deal did not work out. We recently lost a Chase Bank Branch on Cedar Lane. At the moment the only retail that will bring a lot of out-of-town shoppers to our community is the proposed cannabis establishment where ever it is finally located.

·        We must figure out a way to keep residential taxes low and build a vibrant commercial base.

·        We must expand the collaborative purchasing opportunities by working with the hospital, the university and the school district. We could expand this collaboration to include Englewood and Hackensack.


For several years prior to 2006 Teaneck had gathered hundreds of residents together in work groups to create Pathways to the Future. Pathways to the Future was the visioning that inclusively drew together residents from every one of Teaneck’s diverse communities. Its work groups had assessed every aspect of Town life. The final report of this project was published and ready for implementation by the spring of 2006.


Instead, the 2006 election resulted in the selection of new Mayor Elie Y. Katz whose Council immediately killed the Pathways Project and instead no-bid contracted an expensive economic development plan that was the basis for what has evolved into a Council-led program to over-develop Teaneck by declaring various locations as area of blight.


We are ready for a new Council majority – Rise for Teaneck on Column Two,

2, 3,4, and 5; We can now choose the leadership to forge a renewed suburban quality of life in which we will all thrive.

Henry Pruitt   October 15, 2022   !

TEANECK VOICES LISTENS:

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM DAVID SCHLUSSEL

We are proud residents of Teaneck and members of at least 8 shuls in Teaneck. We are founders, board members and leaders of our local shuls, major Jewish organizations, and our area Jewish schools. We are committed to the continued thriving of our Jewish community and of Teaneck as a whole.  


We are writing in support of the Rise for Teaneck candidates for Township Council: Denise Belcher, Danielle Gee, Hillary Goldberg, and Chondra Young. We encourage other Teaneck residents and members of the Jewish community to vote for and support them.

 

Under the current members of the Town council, Teaneck’s debt has skyrocketed. It is unsustainable. Our council sweeps this fact under the rug while boasting 0% tax increase. Teaneck has simply been borrowing more to meet its budget needs. As with all debt, it eventually comes due.  


This will have a severe impact on your taxes and on town infrastructure, which in turn will have a severe impact on the Jewish community and its Jewish institutions. (Information on Teaneck’s skyrocketing debt is publicly and freely available.) This council also spends money on unnecessary litigation – losing most of the time.

 

Additionally, their inciting claims that they are only ones looking out for the Jewish community is not only false and unsupported, but it is divisive and offensive. Speak to the Rise for Teaneck candidates and you will see Katz’s claims have no basis – it is duplicitous. 


Teaneck needs a change. Unchecked Township governance is corrosive and dangerous for all of us. Please join us in voting for the Rise for Teaneck candidates (column 2): Denise Belcher, Dannielle Gee, Hillary Goldberg, and Chondra Young. Please encourage other members of the Teaneck Jewish community and other Teaneck residents to do the same. They will care for the Jewish community and Teaneck as a whole and work toward making sure our communities and town grow and thrive.

 

Robert Goodman

Steven Gruber

Sanford Hausler

Marty Heistein

Richard Kahn

Teddi Krauthamer

David Montag

Abbe Rosner

Ruth Roth

Ronnie Schlussel

Alan Sohn

TEANECK VOICES LISTENS:

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM

SENATOR LORETTA WEINBERG 


I support Holy Name Hospital

I support Denise Belcher, Danielle Gee, Hillary Goldberg, & Chondra Young for Teaneck Council.


During my legislative career I was honoured to consistently work on behalf of the great healthcare institutions located in our district. and it was particularly important for me to do everything I could legislatively on behalf of my own hometown hospital Holy Name Medical Center.


Holy Name provides great healthcare to our residents; and they were (and continue to be ) the “go to“ healthcare provider to combat the Covid crisis.


Our community must help them to expand appropriately so they can continue to grow and provide a viable full-service health facility for our community.


And now It is appropriate to have a council who are aware of their own conflicts of interest which often necessitates redo of resolutions and ordinances. Now is the time to have a new council majority to provide the framework to end all this costly litigation.


So let’s elect four women who will serve in an accountable, inclusive government. Let’s make sure that they do everything possible (with integrity) to enable Holy Name to get on with its important mission


Loretta Weinberg

WHAT SHOULD CANDIDATES STANDING FOR ELECTION

DO WHEN THEY ARE LIED ABOUT?

TELL THE TRUTH! But – and it’s a big But – How do voters know that what the lied-about candidates say is the truth, really IS the TRUTH?

 

That’s the big problem for candidates who are lied about – they usually sound defensive and too often are perceived to be shading the truth in their answers. Except when the lies are so absurd, that the Truth is acknowledged by everyone to be good old common sense.

 

Right now, in the Teaneck, incumbent Deputy Mayor Elie Katz, in his October 24, 2022 “Tid-Bits,” has distributed LIES about the 4 members of the RISE slate, Denise Belcher, Danielle Gee, Hillary Goldberg, and Chondra Young that defy the TRUTH and COMMON SENSE.

 

Here are the LIES:

 

           OUR OPPONENTS [ARE]                                                                                                                                                                

           X Against Holy Name Hospital, A leading healthcare provider in 

               the state

           X Against saving Stop & Shop , the only full-service supermarket in

                 Teaneck

           X Against affordable housing projects for our Seniors

           X Against 0% Tax increases”

 

Can anyone really believe any of that? Here is the Truth, the FACTS:

 

·        The 4 RISE candidates are proud of Holy Name Medical Center. They are proud of the extraordinary role HNMC played in the Covid-19 crisis. And the RISE candidates support the expansion of HNMC with the property rights of the Good Neighbors fully respected and protected.

 

·        The 4 RISE candidates, as mothers, depend on and support Stop & Shop, the only full-service supermarket in Teaneck. They have always wanted it to both stay and thrive!

 

·        The 4 RISE candidates strongly support Affordable Housing. As the public well knows, the RISE candidates support affordable housing integrated with market rate housing. When the incumbent candidates wanted the Holuba/KRE project to tuck the affordable units in the back between the garbage and the railroad tracks, The RISE candidates supported the successful law suit brought by 7 residents and Fair Share Housing to integrate the affordable units with the market rate units. The RISE candidates want to provide as many opportunities as possible to make Teaneck affordable for all Teaneck residents.

 

·        The 4 RISE candidates, like smart financial professionals, are neither for nor against a 0% tax increase. And they are all financial professionals! They believe in sound fiscal management including limiting long term debt and building reserves. They do not believe in creating a 0% increase budget by burdening the future residents with unmanageable and overwhelming debt. They will present a budget to residents that supports or increases, as well as maintains, the services and amenities in town, by striving to grow other sources of revenue, rather than raising taxes.

 

There you have the facts, the truth: Makes sense, doesn’t it?


THE 3 WAYS TO VOTE NOW

IN TEANECK'S 2022 ELEFCTION


The 3 ways to vote in Teaneck’s 2022 General Election –

updated to Monday 10/31/2022


1) Early Voting in Teaneck Has Started

ONLY at The Rodda Center

250 Colonial Court

Polls are Open all week

Mon 10/31- Saturday 11/5

    from10am to 8pm

Sunday 11/6

    from 10am to 6pm


2) If you have voted by mail, and want to make sure that the County has received your mail-in ballot, you can track your ballot. Click:

https://nj.gov/state/elections/vote-track-my-ballot.shtml


You can still tell the County you want to vote by mail in this election, but you may have to take your application personally to the County Clerk in Hackensack – that office must have received your completed request by COB this Tuesday November 1. Click (https://www.bergencountyclerk.org/News/View/1272/vote-by-mail-application---due-november-1st)

 

3) If you plan to vote on Election Day, Tuesday November 8, you need to go in person to your specific voting location (one of 23 in Teaneck) from 6:00 am to 8;00 pm

To find out what is your voting location, Click:

https://nj.gov/state/elections/vote-polling-location.shtml

NEW INFORMATION ABOUT

TEANECK 2022 CANDIDATES

Teaneck Voices continues to urge its readers to obtain as much information as possible about the candidates running for both Teaneck Council and the Board of Education in this Fall’s 2022 General Election. (See separate story in this edition on the status of the 3 ways to vote).


Board of Education candidates

New this week to the sources of independent information is the video from the Board of Education candidates’ forum conducted at the High School by the Northeast Teaneck Block President’s Association (NETBPAS) on Wednesday evening, October 26.

This video can be accessed by clicking https://vimeo.com/764529215


Council Candidates

Teaneck Voices continues to recommend that you view all or part of the video of NETBPA’s Council candidates’ forum from Wednesday, October 19. Information about that very useful forum and how to access specific portions of the forum that address questions asked by the Moderator can again be found on the Teaneck Voices website at Click Here


For written bio and issue narratives by the Teaneck candidates for both Council and Board, the League of Women’s 411 website is most complete.

DOES THE S&S SETTLEMENT BIND

FUTURE REDEVELOPMENT? YES!

Public controversy has swirled around how & why the Town’s recent settlement of Stop & Shop’s litigation is said to have included quite specific Town commitments as to how the two AINR’s that sandwich Cedar Lane’s key retail district will be redeveloped with massive new high-rise facilities


Neither the settlement itself nor the plans the settlement language references had ever been mentioned in a Council agenda before the Mayor suddenly “walked-in” the settlement resolution to Council’s 9/20 meeting & had it read by the Clerk. No printed version of that resolution nor its attached plans had been made public before Council passed the resolution later in the 9/20 meeting. Immediate public criticism was intense.


In an apparent effort to quell the growing storm criticizing both process and substance, Mayor Dunleavy suddenly announced that he would “divert from the printed agenda” at min34 of the next (10/25) Council video saying Town attorneys wanted to clarify the settlement to “assure the public has correct information”.

 

Enter attorney Reginald Jenkins who delivered a 13–minute statement that contained a variety of assertions about the settlement that were at best misleading including that the settlement “did not include a development plan written in stone” – a claim then repeated by the Mayor. DM Katz then said: “so nothing is done yet”; CM Kaplan claimed “no plans exist”. (For this entire sequence, Click Here and move the cursor to 37min.

 

Luckily, a Teaneck resident had paid far better attention to the settlement’s actual words than did the Council or its attorneys. Listen/watch the explicit & accurate 3-min G&W refutation by resident/attorney Ron Schwartz of the claim that

nothing has happened & that “many meetings” with public input will occur before anything is either proposed/decided. Ron Schwartz alone cites the document in this brief video of his G&W statement


Click Here for that statement which all our readers should watch/hear

 

So powerful was this Schwartz statement that Council & attorney Shahdanian then broke protocol to interrupt G&W for 7-minutes claiming they needed to “correct” Schwartz misinformation by restating their misleading statements that that nothing had been decided. Unfortunately, they provided not a word of documentary evidence to back their claims.

SOMETHING TO REMEMBER AND CONSIDER

Council


Teaneck Council’s meeting beginning at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, October 25 was in no way consistent with the published agenda of the meeting (Click Here). For the second meeting in a row, Mayor Dunleavy, without going through the motions of getting Council approval for an agenda change, first introduced a session announcing the pending approval of a new DPW/Recycle facility in a shared services agreement to use part of Leonia’s recycle facility. This site is located in and/or contiguous to Overpeck Park. Teaneck Voices has compelling reasons to believe that this DPW announcement was very premature since complex processes lie ahead to achieve approval of a new use of a facility sitting in complex park-contingent protected property that is accessed through other park rights-of-way. One can only assume that some members of Council pressed for this early announcement at the final pre-election Council meeting.


Since 1963 Teaneck Managers and Mayors have for 59 years been writing/telling residents indicating that the Town was on the verge of securing an alternate DPW location.  And every such spate of announcements has ended in zilch. But the idea that a new DPW location could be found has been used to deflect attention from the fact that this municipally-owned property poses serious risks to both Town employees and residents delivering recycle to the site.


Once the “we’re moving the DPW facility" session concluded, Dunleavy moved to the next non-agenda item, defense of the plans referenced in the Stop & Shop settlement. (See related story)in this edition.). Along the way, Council decided to delay until late November consideration of an ordinance to grant the developer of the 2nd Alfred Avenue AINR a deal that would give the developer a much-criticized tax break, another Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT. (See prior Voices coverage on its website at Click Here) . Did Council decide to avoid the public hearing/vote on that matter until after the election?


Eventually, Council on 10/27 got to public input in the Good &Welfare section. An overflow Council Chambers matched by apparently equal numbers of persons seeking input via zoom led to more than an hour of public critique of Council on both the S&S settlement matter and how Council had handled religiously-sensitive input at the prior (October) meeting. Pressure to hear more public input led to suspension and reopening of G&W. At G&W’s end, virtually every Council member in attendance apologized for their individual insensitivity and ignorance following a G&W speaker at the prior meeting.



A motion for adjournment was made that was not completed and the final 4 minutes of the meeting tape should probably be watched by all Voices readers. (Click Here and go to final 4 minutes) as it records sharp criticism from the Chamber for Council’s failure to provide G&W speaking opportunities for many in attendance.


Planning Board

If the 10/25 Council meeting ended in cacophony, it was matched in terms of chaos by the Planning Board meeting which occurred two days later (Thursday 10/27). Ironically, that meeting had been called to address two Holy Name proposed site plans – and had been scheduled as the first meeting governed by Open Public Meeting Act regulations to take place since the pandemic with no zoom access or input opportunity – and no video. It had been scheduled to be placed in Gym #2 of the Rodda Center with only Town audio equipment.. Gym #2 is notorious for it echoes and fully lived up to its notoriety. (Click Here to hear the Town audio and see if you can figure out what is being said)

The meeting began with the withdrawal – apparently by Holy Name – of one of its two proposed site plans. Attorney Berger, for HNMC, began by asserting that the site plan still on the agenda (a new employee day care center to be placed at the western end of the hospital zone) was fully consistent with the provisions of Ordinance 20-2022, the hospital expansion ordinance which is now in litigation. That claim was soon disproven as many plan specifics were identified as deviating variances to the Ordinance.

The subsequent hours of PB site plan review – lasting until after midnight - can only be described as farcical. Attorney Berger introduced her first witness, an engineer who spoke in a near whisper with the microphone perpetually away from his face. He was repeatedly requested to speak so he could be heard. After his presentation of the day care facility site plan, he was questioned for hours about issues including material from his original testimony, but which the witness and HNMC’s attorney consistently claimed that the witnesses’ ignorance of the answers to the questions he was asked would be better addressed by the next applicant witnesses – presumably the hospital’s traffic expert and architect. Along the way it was agreed that the PB will next meet on these matters on November 21 and 28 (conveniently after the election)

Readers anxious to review the content of this meeting can try listening to the inaudible audio. Teaneck Voices did video record the meeting and is in the process of determining whether its video’s audio would make publication of the video worthwhile.


Other Meetings

Two other town meetings with OPMA requirements had been scheduled for last week. If the website is correct, the Environmental Commission again did not meet. The Teaneck Historic Preservation Commission did meet – and its zoom meeting was recorded and is available on line (Click Here). The Commission’s diligent effort to secure new historical markers is, as the final moments of that video show, being frustrated by diverse impediments.


All in all, a week of Town meetings suggesting that Teaneck current officialdom is surely not ready for prime time!

UPCOMING MUNICIPAL EVENTS

Upcoming Public Meetings – 10/31 to 11/6, 2022

 



Stigma Free Advisory Board (SFAB)–Tuesday – November 1, 2022 at 6:00 pm.

 

·        Public access and opportunity for input limited by the Advisory Board ordinance (*See ordinance below)

·         

Parks, Playgrounds and Recreation Advisory Board (PPRAB)–Wednesday – November 2, 2022 at 7:30 pm.

 

·        Public access and opportunity for input limited by the Advisory Board ordinance (*See ordinance below)

 

Teaneck Library Board – Thursday November 3 at 6:30 pm – see events calendar on the Library website 48 hours prior to meeting for access and agenda information

 

……………………………..

*Quote from Ordinance 15-2020 on Advisory Boards adopted by Council on August 11, 2020:

 

“Council’s advisory Board meetings are closed to the public. The public can submit items for discussion to the Council’s advisory board chair and council liaison for review and potential for inclusion on their meeting agenda. If the item is placed on the agenda, the chair, with approval of their Council’s advisory board, may invite the member of the public to come and speak to them about the specific issue they want to have discussed”.

This Week's Events at the Library 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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