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WHAT DO THE RESIDENTS GET

FROM THE STOP & SHOP SETTLEMENT

PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

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What do the Residents Get from the Stop & Shop Settlement?

Teaneck Voices to Endorse 4 Council Candidates

Mail-in-Ballot for 2022 General Election Arriving This Week

Video & Voter Guide Available for LWV's Board of Education Candidate Forum

Margaret Baker: Another Look at What it Means to Lose a Residential Neighborhood

Slide Presentation from 9/22 Affordable Housing Webinar Now Available 

Voter Registration Information

Upcoming Municipal Meetings

Events at the Library



Announcements


  • How to Vote by Mail in 2022 General Election - LWV
  • Vote! NETBPA Flyer
  • LWV Candiudate Forum for Teaneck Council - 10/3
  • Model America - MSNBC - 9/18 -v10 pm
  • Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month
  • Prayers and Support for Ukrainian People
  • Contacting Teaneck Voices


WHAT DO THE RESIDENTS GET

FROM THE STOP & SHOP SETTLEMENT

If you read Teaneck Voices last week and/or watched the Planning Board meeting this past Thursday evening, September 22, you know that Stop & Shop’s lawsuit against the town of Teaneck has been settled.

So, what do we residents get from this settlement?

·       We get our Stop & Shop

·       We get two remaining Areas in Need of Development (AINRs 

also known as Areas of Blight)


  • o  American Legion Drive except for Stop & Shop and the Buddhist Center
  • o  Beverly Road from Garrison Ave. to Windsor Rd.


What will be developed in those blighted areas?



  • ·       Multistory Apartment Buildings
  • ·       A multistory pay-for-parking garage to make up for the lost free parking on American Legion Drive and Beverly Road


Gone will be plentiful free parking, The Farmer’s Market, and the beautiful Azalea bushes lining the sidewalk from Beverly to Cedar Lane.


Teaneck’s new definition of BLIGHT: Fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious baked goods, and gorgeous azaleas. Welcome to Teaneck!

 

Discussion

Who is responsible for all these AINR development proposals? Ironically, it is the same firm whose current President wrote the damning supermarket analysis, adopted by the Town, that in the Spring of 2021 described the S&S facility as a threat to the Town’s “safety, health, morals and welfare”. (See Preiss presentation 3/25/21 Click Here) It was this report’s findings that led to – and was cited by -- S&S in its May 2021 suit that is now being settled.


What right have Teaneck’s Council and Planning Board to commit to a developer the permission to implement multiple large scale development facilities in a major portion of the Cedar Lane retail district? No document remotely as expansive in defining the Town’s land use future has been proposed, let alone approved, in this century. Let’s take a closer look at the process.


With no discussion, Council on Tuesday 9/20 unanimously passed a “walk in” resolution as part of its Consent Agenda to approve a Settlement Agreement between the Town and Stop & Shop. That 59-page agreement includes conceptual development plans for the two entire AINRs that would together “sandwich” much of the Cedar Lane retail district between high-rise facilities owned by a single developer. It includes conceptual plans, diagrams, and other development specifications.


Two days later, on Thursday the Town’s Planning Board unanimously passed a resolution approving the proposed litigation settlement with language much more limited in scope. The Planning Board had, like the Town, been cited in the S&S suit. The Board unanimously approved its attorney’s resolution of the Settlement that had been first reviewed in a closed session but, then, was not publicly discussed by the Board before being unanimously approved by the Board’s 7 members and an alternate in attendance.


Last Thursday afternoon Voices had drawn reader attention to the fact that neither the Settlement itself nor the Council resolution had been made available to the public prior to Council action. Had that settlement then subsequently been placed on the Town website? A Voices call to the Clerk’s office asking if the Website had posted the settlement led to a search by the Clerk staff which then called back an hour later to say that the settlement was on the website - deeply embedded in Council minutes.


Voices had been able to extract the Settlement and place it on its Voices website. Six residents were able to review the settlement before the Planning Board meeting and to comment on it during Good & Welfare. 

The 13 minutes of resident G&W comments can be seen on video Click Here. Those residents all agreed that the Settlement appears to have been purposely hidden from the public. They all also expressed opposition to key parts of the settlement agreement.


Immediately after Good & Welfare the PB went into closed session for 30 minutes. Thereafter, with no comments from any other Board member, the Board attorney read his resolution. Click Here


What is currently unknowable is the extent to which this settlement agreement and the resolutions just passed by Town Council and the Planning Board have effectively committed this suburban Township to a specific course of action concerning the Town’s primary retail district and its environs before there has been any public discussion of how the area surrounding Cedar Lane should be developed!


Teaneck’s current governing body and land use boards continuously demonstrate that they do not believe the Town’s residents have either a right to know what their Town is doing before the boards act, or to provide resident input and expertise

Teaneck Voices to Endorse 4 Council Candidates

This Time Next Week!!!

TEANECK VOICES WILL ANNOUNCE ITS ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE 4 TEANECK COUNCIL SEATS UP FOR ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 8th

MAIL-IN BALLOT FOR 2022 GENERAL ELECTION

ARRIVING THIS WEEK

Teaneck voters who have signed up to receive and be mail-in voters can expect to receive their mail in ballots by the end of this week, presumably by October 1.


  • The process of mail-in ballot distribution is well underway. On Monday 9/26, the Bergen County Clerk reported that Official Mail-in Ballots have been sent out to 31 of the 70 Bergen County municipalities. Those communities were told to expect to receive their ballots within 3 days.


A frequently-asked question among Teaneck voters has been: “what will these ballots look like?” Voices like other sources has been able to secure an image of the back page of the single page mail-in ballot being sent to Teaneck voters via USPS.  We reproduce that image below.


Several reminders about this mail-in ballot:


1)    On the left-hand side, the ballot does specify the number of elected positions for the three separate Teaneck-only races (Council with 4 positions to-be selected; Board of Education with 3 full-3-year term positions to be selected; and Board of Education with 2 one-year term positions to be selected).


2)    There are a variety of sources -additional to those provided in the ballot mailing itself – to guide the process of voting with and of successfully returning this ballot. One such source is the two-page LWV document found in the Announcement section of this Voices edition


3) The mail-in voter has a significant window of time within which to return this ballot – well over a month. And there will be a variety of opportunities to review information on the profiles and positions taken by the candidates for both Council and Board of Education. The only risk in waiting to complete and return your ballot is the risk of forgetting to complete your voting before November 8. 

VIDEO & VOTER GUIDE AVAILABLE

FOR LWV'S BOARD OF EDUCATION FORUM

The League of Women Voters sponsored a forum for Teaneck’s Board of Education electoral candidates on September 19, 2022. The election for the five available Board seats in 2022 involves 2 separate races.

1.     3 seats are available for the normal 3-year terms.

2.     2 seats are available for the 2023 year due to two resignations from the Board that occurred in 2022. 


There are 12 candidates competing for these five positions. Eleven of those candidates participated in the LWV forum. (LWV leadership explained that candidate for 1 year, Lori Bullock, was unable to participate due to a family emergency.)


The forum which was led as always by an experienced League moderator lasted nearly an hour and a half. Voices encourages residents who missed the forum to take the time to play the video of the session which is available by Clicking Here.


Useful, as well, to voters seeking information about candidate qualifications and views, is the League’s Voter’s Guide to the 12 candidates. It can be found by going to the Teaneck Voices website or specifically Clicking Here

MARGARET BAKER: ANOTHER LOOK AT WHAT IT MEANS TO LOSE A RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

The 2nd & 3rd Goals of Teaneck's Master Plan put the issue directly

(And they are also the 2nd & 3rd Goals of Master Plan Re-examinations for 2011,2014 & 2017.)

Until this year, there was a single-family home directly across the street from the long-time resident Baker's home at 1086 Decatur and to their neighbors, the Lauzons, at 1098 Decatur.


Theirs had been a single-family residential neighborhood. The house across the street at 1089 Decatur had looked like the picture below from Margaret Baker’s front window and from the front windows of her neighbors to the north on the west side of that block of Decatur. The lot immediately to the north of this was quiet treed open space.

But since early Spring of 2022, the view from Decatur has been slowly deteriorating so that today it looks like, well like what you see below:

On Saturday September 24, Voices stopped by to see just how well the Teaneck’s Master Plan commitment to Margaret’s single-family neighborhood was being kept. Let’s ask her Click Here

SLIDE PRESENTATION FROM THE 9/22 AFFORDABLE HOUSING WEBINAR IS NOW AVAILABLE

The Township sponsored its webinar on Affordable Housing on Thursday evening, 9/22/2022. The evening began with short introductory remarks by Manager Kazinci and Deputy Mayor Schwartz which included a review of the Town’s current and prospective affordable housing availability.


The remainder of the hour-long webinar involved a presentation and discussion by Frank Piazza who has been the Town’s COAH Administrator for several years. Piazza is the principal of Piazza & Associates of Princeton (Click Here for the firm’s website)


According to the Clerk’s office, this Webinar was not recorded. However, Voices has located the internet access to the entire slide presentation. Click Here.


Piazza’s presentation included the following information about how to access affordable housing applications (www.HousingQuest.com), how to email him: Teaneck@HousingQuest.com) and how to reach him by phone (609-786-1100)


VOTER REGISTERATION INFORMATION

If you are not registered to vote, please make it a priority to do so. To complete a registration form or for more information regarding voting in Bergen County, please click onto the this link.


If you are not sure if you are registered to vote in Teaneck, you may search here.


To check the details of your voter record, you may sign up here.


For more of Voices guide to 2022 voter education and information Click Here

UPCOMING MUNICIPAL EVENTS


Upcoming Municipal Meetings –9/26-10/1 2022


Teaneck Historical Preservation Commission (THPC) Wednesday September. 28, 2022 at 7:30 pm Access via zoom Click Here and use passcode 326939.

For a very full meeting agenda Click Here


Teaneck Board of Education Special Meeting Thursday Sep 29, 2022 at 8:00 pm. A zoom access address is provided, Click Here. However, the Board notice specifies the meeting to be “Closed session only” and apparently virtual only. “The purpose of this meeting is to continue the Superintendent Search process. Formal Action may be taken”.



This Week's Events at the Library click here

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TEANECK VOICES CONTINUES TO OFFER ITS

PRAYERS AND STRONG SUPPORT

TO THE BRAVE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM

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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