In just 5 hours (8 pm Tuesday 9/22), the Teaneck Planning Board will begin a meeting to address essentially one agenda item - to vote on whether to approve a 59-page settlement agreement to settle the suit brought by Stop & Shop in May 2021. (Click Here to see the Agreement on the Voices website)
Click Here with passcode 043717 to participate in tonight's 8 pm Planning Board meeting
The Planning Board has not been asked to act on ANY MATTER as remotely consequential to the Township in years. Why? Because, for example:
1. This settlement agreement - in the context of settling litigation - describes what amounts to a redevelopment plan for two separate AINRs - Areas in Need of Redevelopment (American Legion & Beverly Road). But all of the prior notice requirements for such plans are ignored (see below)
2. This settlement agreement names as the redeveloper for those two AINR's the Crossroad Companies - whose Exec VP (now President) wrote the 2021 report to justify calling out Stop & Shop as a facility endangering the health, welfare and morals of the community.
3. This settlement agreement specifies that Crossroad Companies is seeking to purchase all of the properties located in both AINRs and even specifies that Crossroads will be given a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement - which means Crossroads will pay a fraction of the property tax rates that all other Town property owners pay.
4. This settlement agreement does not include the Buddhist Center which has a long-term lease for its facility in the Am Legion AINR and consequently the agreement would impose a series of new restrictions on use and event participant size - provisions which may well violate state provisions to protect the facilities of religious institutions
Why did you the reader not know much about this settlement -- let alone its content - so you could become knowledgeable and comment on it in Council and PB meeting?
Voices suspects your government did not want you to know since:
1. The settlement agreement and its authorizing resolution were not announced in Council's pre-meeting agenda - and no opportunity was provided to the public to see the agreement before its was made part of the Consent Agenda on 9/20. Voices surmises that not all members of Council had seen the agreement before Council's pre-meeting closed session on 9/20.
2. The agenda for tonight's Planning Board meeting was not posted until 4 pm on Tuesday 9/20 and it provided only a vague 5-line announcement of the settlement - no copy of the settlement document! See the PB agenda below) .
3. Apparently, the merchants on Cedar Lane were provided no information about the settlement.
4. A call to the Clerk's office looking for the settlement settlement agreement at noon today brought a return call from the Clerk's office saying that the agreement could be found embedded (at page 232) of the minutes of the 9/20 meeting (just where you would have expected it to be?).
It was after reviewing all of this that Voices decided to provide its readers with a special edition!
Readers deserve to know what this settlement agreement includes - Click Here
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