At Last – A Valid Recreation & Open Space Inventory
PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES
5/27/2024
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Contents:
- At Last – A Valid Recreation & Open Space Inventory
- The Week That Was – May 20-26, 2024
- Cannabis in Teaneck
- Teaneck – Home of Jazz Greats at the Puffin Foundation
- Voting in the Current Primaries
- This Week in Teaneck
Announcements
- Memorial Day – 5/27
- Important Events in June
- Race Amity Day – 6/9
- Community Picnic in Votee – 6/9
- Juneteenth – 6-15 to 19
- An Evening for Democracy – OTOV Fundraiser – 6/22
Contacting Teaneck Voices:
- Email: teaneckvoices@gmail.com
- Phone: 201-214-4937
- USPS Mail: Teaneck Voices, PO Box 873. at 1673 Palisade Ave. 07666
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At Last – A Valid Recreation & Open Space Inventory | |
For any NJ municipality to be eligible to receive grants from the State’s substantial Green Acres (GA) program, a municipality and the NJ Department of the Environmental Protection (DEP) must agree on a Recreation and Open Space Inventory (a list) of “all of a local government unit’s funded and unfunded parkland.” The state defines this inventory as:
“Recreation and Open Space Inventory” or “ROSI”: the listing of all of a local government unit's funded and unfunded parkland, including a description sufficient to identify each such parcel [that] is a component of the Project Agreement” [for any grant].
For most of the past 15 years, Teaneck Township and the Green Acres compliance personnel at DEP have disputed whether the list the Township had submitted included all of the land that Teaneck had itself previously identified as its recreational and open space property [“parkland”]. At times that dispute has been, to put it mildly, rancorous. And, as a result, Green Acres funding for Teaneck projects remained unattainable.
But as of Thursday, May 23, by unanimous vote of the Planning Board (PB), that dispute is resolved. The PB approved having its Chair certify a ROSI inventory total of Green Acres- encumbered 191.6 acres – a total that included 17 more acres than the Township’s submissions to the State had previously identified.
Residents can now review that complete inventory of protected property as part of the PB Agenda if you Click Here and go to pp. 13-17. For readers interested in the relevant regulatory definitions, go to that same web address beginning at p. 11.
Included in that Planning Board vote was Town acknowledgment that this ROSI is part of the Green Acre’s recently approved $750K Herrick Park Improvement Project, an approval previously awaiting only this agreed ROSI. This same new ROSI should also solidify the financial component of recent programmatic approval for a similar Sagamore Park grant of approximately $750K.
In other words, Teaneck is finally taking part in the same Green Acres program that its neighbors on every side (eg., Englewood, Bergenfield, Hackensack, Bogota & Leonia) have annually benefitted from. Voices has tracked many of the twists and turns of this 15-year struggle. Given the antagonism that had built up on both sides, it took at least 7 months of renewed and persistent efforts – in particular by our Manager and new Town attorney – to create the dialogue required. It also took the Town’s recovery of data verifying a 1966 Ordinance and Map to close the gap. Voices calculates that only once since 1990 has the Town participated in the Green Acres’ annual grant-making and has likely foregone well over $16M in grant receipts. Congratulations to all parties who made this ROSI advance possible.
With this ROSI agreement and the recent Planning Board approval of the 2024 Environmental Resources Inventory (ERI) update (see Voices story of the May 9 Planning Board meeting Click Here), two of the three “environmental reports” needed for some form of incorporation in the new Master Plan have been finalized. What remains is the long-delayed revised Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP). It is reported that Barbara Heskins Davis of the NJ Land Conservancy, the original author of the OSRP is completing the revision of the 2019 OSRP that still needs PB approval – and that that will occur at the next PB meeting on June 20.
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The Week That Was – May 20-26, 2024 | |
Council – Tuesday, May 21, 2022
It is increasingly clear that Township residents want to have a direct say in what their Township and its Council do. 26 residents and one non-resident spoke in the two public input portions of this meeting – and their input constituted well over two-thirds of the 4-hour + meeting once the presentations were completed. Citizens remain strongly supportive of traffic safety/complete streets regulation. They also strongly support the creation of a compliance office or officer to track ways to implement the town’s rules – many believe that the use of Areas of Redevelopment (“blight”) could be addressed more effectively and efficiently by simply following up with compassionate code enforcement.
Most of the Council’s public hearings on ordinances to be adopted focused on the Cannabis Ordinance (7-2024) which eventually was readily passed. (Note, this ordinance simply updated the anachronistic 2021 Township ordinance to make it consistent with current state regulation). That ordinance eventually was adopted by Council with a single abstention.
Before the public hearing, Council decided (5-2) to not have a public hearing or vote on the Auxiliary Units (ADU) ordinance with the assertion that, although strongly supported, it should await passage of the Master Plan. Various members of the public subsequently criticized Council for doing so.
Then came the Consent Agenda. It is notable that of the 30 resolutions listed, more than two-thirds violated the Council’s own rule that consent agenda items should, unless an emergency compels an exception, be available to the public by Thursday evening prior to Council. Many of the consent agenda resolutions - or elements of them - appeared on the agenda late in the day of the meeting itself! For none of these “late” resolutions was there an emergency cited! Several residents noted that the public had been thereby deprived of the opportunity to know and comment on what Council was approving.
As reviewed by Voices in prior editions (Click Here), it is now clear that Council’s late and desperate effort to sell the Town’s cell tower is a late tactic to try to rearrange/ boost revenue to offset huge Township expense increases needed to provide services. Ordinance 9-2024 is believed to pave the way to that “sell the cell tower” effort. We will not know until mid-summer whether that effort will successfully save 2024 property taxes.
In addition, the many-year effort to approve the housing of backyard chickens has won majority Council support. Hence the introduction of ordinance 11-2024, whose specific provisions are certain to draw public commentary when the hearing/adoption process for the ordinance comes forward on June 18. Consistent with the deep divide over vaping, electronic smoking devices, and their relationship to cannabis, Council unanimously introduced Ordinance 12-2024 which would stop any additional establishments of this specific type.
Planning Board - May 23, 2024
As addressed elsewhere in this Voices edition, the Planning Board moved efficiently to approve the Recreation & Open Space Inventory (ROSI) and memorialize its decision to approve the Environmental Resource Inventory (ERI). It also further solidified its precise approval of Ordinance 7-2024 on cannabis regulation of facilities already conditionally zoned for Alfred Avenue. It additionally appointed Nylema Nabbie, Esq. as the Board’s attorney – although for reasons not explained to the public, Attorney Nabbie was not present, and her replacement from her firm, McManimon, Scotland & Baumann, LLC, arrived 20 minutes late.
The PB by-laws call for the Board’s Good & Welfare to occur only at the end of a meeting. Four members of the public, all participants in the organizations making applications to become licensed cannabis facilities in Teaneck – at locations additional to Alfred Avenue - spoke urging the PB to provide support for such facilities when the Board produces its Master Plan.
Readers may want to evaluate what was said in these G&W statements (Click Here and move the cursor to 1hr.) Progress by the Board in drafting and making public a new Master Plan was not otherwise addressed in the meeting.
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At the council meeting on Tuesday, May 21, Council held a hearing on Ordinance #7-2024, amending Ordinance #57-2021 permitting Cannabis Establishments as Conditional Use within the Light Industry District in the Township of Teaneck. The Light Industry District is Alfred Ave in the Northeast quadrant of the township, adjacent to a single-family residential area and a City of Englewood Park. Councilwoman explained that the Ordinance is “administrative” dealing with “license caps, guidelines and application process.”
As is required in our Faulkner Act Council-Manager form of government, an Ordinance is presented twice: It is introduced, called a First Reading, and two weeks later (or at the next council meeting after that time) the Second Reading occurs. The Second Reading is followed by a “hearing” on the Ordinance at which members of the public can speak ONLY to the Ordinance being read. Following the hearing, Councilmembers vote on the Ordinance.
While Councilwoman Orgen, repeatedly stated that this ordinance was strictly administrative, that it had nothing to do with whether or not Teaneck would host cannabis facilities or where those facilities would be located, the members of the public used the opportunity to express their views on whether or not Teaneck should host cannabis businesses and, if so, where they should be located.
Of the 20 individuals who spoke, a majority expressed strong views on 2 issues. Unusual for Teaneck there appears to be agreement among the various sub-communities in town:
- Although the Ordinance was NOT yea or nay on the cannabis issue, many speakers used the opportunity to express their unhappiness at Teaneck’s having “opted-in” when given the opportunity in 2021.
- At the same time, although the Ordinance did not deal with zoning or location, many speakers objected to the sole location planned in the Northeast of Teaneck, seen often as a “target” location for land uses not wanted in other parts of Teaneck
Councilwoman Belcher made a motion to table the Ordinance until August 20, 2024, seconded by Councilwoman Gee. The motion was denied by a vote of 5-2.
Subsequent vote on the Ordinance passed by 6-1.
Because so many public comments focused on whether or not Teaneck should have cannabis facilities in town, Council should have taken the time to explain to the on-site and at-home audience that CANNABIS IS HERE TO STAY – AT LEAST UNTIL AUGUST, 2026, and Council cannot change that fact. When New Jersey Voters supported the legalization of cannabis in the state, the regulatory commission gave municipalities two options:
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Opt-in would allow the municipality to host all processes from growing to retail sales. The caveat to the Opt-in choice was that the municipality was committed to the presence of cannabis activities and facilities for 5 years.
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Opt-out would allow a municipality to opt in at any point in the future.
Teaneck’s previous Council appointed a Cannabis Sub-committee to study the issue and advise on the action Teaneck should take. The members of the Cannabis Sub-Committee were then-Councilman Keith Kaplan, Councilwoman Karen Orgen, and then-Councilman now Mayor Michael Pagan. These three sub-committee members supported a Teaneck OPT-IN – thus committing the township to 5 years of legal cannabis activities.
However, the regulations do not control the zoning and locations of various cannabis facilities. Should Council seek another Amending Ordinance to change the location from Alfred Ave to one or more of the 4 business districts in Teaneck?
Teaneck Voices will publish your answers sent to teaneckvoices@gmail.com.
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Teaneck – Home of Jazz Greats at the Puffin Foundation | |
Teaneck is full of surprises! Did you know that Teaneck has been the home of Jazz Greats for many years? And did you know that this is the last week (until Friday, May 31st) to see the magnificent photo exhibition of the jazz artists who lived in Teaneck?
A collection of photographs by Chuck Stewart, renowned jazz photographer – also a resident of Teaneck until he died in 2017 at age 89 – is on display at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way.
Here is the roster of great jazz residents of Teaneck and a sample of the powerful photographs that await your visit.
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Voting in the Current Primaries | |
Democratic voters have a new format for their ballots.
- All Democratic candidates for all offices on the ballot that are supported by the Teaneck Democratic Committee have the slogan “Democratic Committee of Bergen County” beside their names.
All affiliated voters eligible to vote in either Democratic or Republican primaries can see their specific ballot for their own specific election district by going to the County Clerk’s Teaneck sample ballots section if you Click Here and scroll down to your own numeric polling district.
Still, Three Ways to Vote
Vote by Mail -
- If you have not made an application for Voting by mail in this Primary election, you must deliver an application to the County Clerk in Hackensack by/on Tuesday, May 28! (Clerk is not open 5/27)
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If you have already voted by mail and want to be sure that your ballot has been received, go to www.vote.nj.gov
- Your mail-in ballot must be postmarked by 8:00 pm on Election Day (June 4) or put in one of the special County mailboxes (Teaneck’s is at the Municipal Building) or taken to the Board of Elections in Hackensack
Early Voting –
Begins on Wednesday, May 29, and ends Sunday, June 2. In Teaneck, the early voting location for all of our 23 voting districts is at the Rodda Center. Voting begins at 10:00 am and goes to 8:00 pm all days – except Sunday ends at 6:00 pm
Regular Voting
Vote at your voting district’s polling location – Tuesday, June 4 from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm.
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If you do not know your voting district or the location of its polling place, Click Here and enter your address and you will get your location.
Unaffiliated voters can affiliate at the polls – early or on election day. It is too late to change your affiliation for this primary.
Too much information? – Go listen to the County Clerk’s most recent 3-ways to vote video at Click Here
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This Week in Teaneck - May 27 - June 2, 2024 | |
If additional information becomes available about these meetings during the week, they will be added in RED font to the Teaneck Voices website at Click Here
Memorial Day: Remember & Honor – Monday, May 27 at 11:00 am on the Municipal Green; Street Faire on Cedar Lane following until 6 unless canceled due to weather
Historic Preservation Commission – Wednesday, May 29, 2024, at 7:00 pm by Zoom (Click Here and add passcode 885536)
Teaneck Council Special Meeting – Thursday, May 30, 2024, at 8:30 pm in Council Chambers. No additional Zoom or agenda information is currently available
- Special Meeting called to conduct additional interviews of Town Manager candidates
Primary Day Early Voting – Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & Saturday (May 29 to June 1) at the Rodda Center from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm & Sunday, June 2 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm at the Rodda Center. See additional Voting story in this Voices edition
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Contacting Teaneck Voices
Co-Editors: Dr. Barbara Ley Toffler and Dr. Chuck Powers
IT Editor: Sarah Fisher
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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