WATCH THAT SIGN!
PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES
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Contents View this issue in your browserAre AINRs a Waste of Time and Money
Watch that Sign!!
Get to Know Your Future Leaders
Listen to the Voices of Teaneck Voices 4 Endorsed Candidates
Preparing to Vote with Additional Independent Information
Something to Remember and Consider
With AINRs Council Sabotages Teaneck's Master Plan
Model America: Our Council on National TV
In case you missed it!
A Delay in HNMC’s Proposed New Site Plan: a Mess Gets Messier
Will the Forum Qualify for Mental Health Aid?
Upcoming Municipal Meetings
Events at the Library
Announcements
- NETBPA'S Council Election Candidates Forum - 10/19
- NETBPA''S BOE Election Candidates Forum - 10/26
- How to Vote by Mail in 2022 General Election - LWV
- Prayers and Support for Ukrainian People
- Contacting Teaneck Voices
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Candidate lawn signs are a key part of Teaneck’s electoral history.
“Someone removed my lawn sign” is a cry that is equally routine in Teaneck’s electoral history. So is the rancor and hurling of invectives that ensue. These processes are already well underway in 2022!
Teaneck Voices decided to put a little information into this yearly town brouhaha. We understand the following:
· Candidate lawn signs can be placed on residential property with the owner’s permission.
· Candidate lawn signs can be placed on commercial or retail property with the permission of the authorized spokesperson for that property.
· Candidate lawn signs cannot be placed on public property which includes variously defined distances from the curb along public rights-of-way
What should I do if a legally placed lawn sign has been removed?
Call the Teaneck Police Department – 201-837-2600.& request Assistant Chief McGurr:
- The Teaneck Police will write a report which you may pick up at the department on Teaneck Road. However, they will not investigate or search for your lawn sign. The Police Report is a public document.
A word to all candidates and their supporters in these final weeks of 2022 campaign season:
PLEASE NO DIRTY TRICKS!!
Part of Teaneck’s electoral history is lawn sign dirty tricks, like the “sandwich.” The “sandwich” is where one candidate’s adherent takes two of their candidate’s signs and places them on either side of a rival’s lawn sign so the original one is no longer visible. Don’t do it!
Then when the obscured candidate tries to remove their lawn sign from the middle of the sandwich, the rival shouts, “They touched my signs. That’s illegal” Too often a public display of anger follows. So – don’t touch each other’s signs! Don’t make a public scene!
Once again, report misbehavior to the police. You will receive a Police Report, which, we remind you is a public document.
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GET TO KNOW YOUR FUTURE LEADERS:
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF TEANECK VOICES' FOUR ENDORSED CANDIDATES FOR COUNCIL
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4 ENDORSED CANDIDATES
FOR THE 4 OPEN SEATS ON TEANECK COUNCIL
In our October 3, 2022 issue of Teaneck Voices, we endorsed the Rise for Teaneck candidate slate for the four open seats on the Teaneck Township Council to be elected on November 8th:
Denise Belcher, Danielle Gee, Hillary Goldberg, & Chondra Young.
Last week, we presented “snapshots” of each woman, to let our readers know more about them than the standard flyer or postcard or forum allows.
So, we repeat, it is with great pride and pleasure that Teaneck Voices has the privilege of endorsing the slate of 4 extraordinary women of Teaneck to lead us into the future.
Read (and enjoy) learning how each woman became an activist in these new “snapshots.”
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Denise Stanford Belcher
Denise’s family were activists. Denise describes herself as her mother’s “civil rights baby.” As a toddler, Denise’s mother took her to meetings with former freedom rider, then-Assembly member (later state senator) Byron Baer.
Learning at her mother’s knee, Denise absorbed the spirit and struggle of the civil rights activists and a commitment to Equality and Equity of opportunity and outcome and the power of Voters’ Rights.
She continues to live by the values she learned from her parents – integrity, honesty, openness, and hard work. And her faith in God.
“There is much work to be done and there are many causes to fight because disparities exist in many arenas from housing, economic and environmental injustices.
I believe that you should Lift others as you Climb. I am inspired by the many who have come before me on whose shoulders that I stand. They are my rocket fuel that propels me to believe that nothing is impossible”.
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Danielle Gee
For Danielle, her early and young adult years were modeled on her mother who worked by day and attended school at night to become a Registered Nurse.
Born in Brooklyn to a Haitian mother and Italian American father, Danielle lived the first few years of her life in Haiti – moving back to Brooklyn with her mother and sister when her parents divorced.
Independent by necessity, Danielle saw education as her way of advancing herself. “When I was in 5th grade, I was chosen to enter the Prep for Prep program – an intensive educational program intended to take bright minority students and prepare them for first-rate colleges.
My mom said, ‘You might go to Harvard or Princeton!’ Me: ‘Not gonna happen, mom.’
Prep for Prep was tough – classes 5 days per week from 8am to 5pm for the two summers after 5th and 6th grades, and in 6th grade I went after school one day a week from 4:30-7:30 and all day every Saturday. Then in 7th grade I was placed in a private school – Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights -- through 12th grade.”
Danielle’s mom was right. Danielle graduated from Princeton and later received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Danielle moved to Teaneck with her family when her oldest son was one. As soon as he was school-aged, she got involved in the school’s PTO, taking on multiple leadership roles.
The Covid-19 lockdown in Spring, 2020 brought a new awakening for Danielle. “Suddenly so many parents – women particularly – were faced with homeschooling their children while working full time. I saw parents frightened and exhausted by trying to understand what the schools expected of them and their children, while desperately needing to work to feed and clothe those children.
I thought, ‘The voice of mothers with students currently in the district is missing from the local school board.
So I decided to run for the Board of Education to fill that void. I discovered a whole new world of community activism! My life experience, and the education I was privileged to receive prepared me to advocate for the families in my community of Teaneck.”.”
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Hillary Goldberg
“In the Summer of 2020, the world was pretty much still shut down by Covid-19 although here in the U.S. – and energetically in Teaneck – we were marching for Black Lives Matter. During that time, I was invited to a Zoom meeting to learn about Teaneck’s form of government. This meeting turned into a weekly meeting where we discussed how our township operated. We adopted the name Teaneck Voices. The question was raised about how best to inform fellow residents about our town government and what they should know to become active, involved residents and voters. The idea of a newsletter was born.
With my knowledge and skills, I was asked to be Editor-in-Chief of the Teaneck Voices newsletter. My team and I spent hours every week researching the basic facts about municipal governments, and then investigating how they were or were not implemented in Teaneck.
As I dove further into the issues, the more involved I became. The success of Teaneck Voices thrust me into Teaneck politics and activism in Teaneck.
Ten months later I made the personal decision to resign Teaneck Voices, and to start Teaneck Tomorrow, a newsletter published every Friday. I continue my mission of voter education, by providing facts and allowing people to draw their own conclusions, to know what their vote means in the voting booth.
The best thing a voter can be armed with is knowledge and that has been my goal and mission as a community activist. I am committed to actively ensuring that residents understand the issues impacting them, in a concise and unbiased way, to allow them to draw their own conclusions.
But as a candidate, I step out of my role as editor and writer and commit my energy to standing for what I believe is right – fair and equitable and decent – for all citizens of Teaneck. I believe when they know and understand the issues, they will agree with me.”
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Chondra Young
“I grew up in Teaneck and volunteering was always part of my life. I was a Girl Scout, where community activism was a major part of our culture. And from 10th through 12th grade I volunteered at Shelter Our Sisters, now called the Center for Hope and Safety.
When I went to college in 1992 – Stockton in Atlantic City, NJ – I looked for volunteer opportunities. It was a way of life for me, so I volunteered at the local Boys and Girls Club.
But my eyes were opened to community activism when I married and became a young mother in Teaneck. Of course, I joined the PTO and became a Girl Scout leader.
But one day, during the 2011 election season, I was invited to a cottage party for the re-election of BOE candidate Ardie Walser. I didn’t know much about local politics, but it seemed like a way to really make a difference in our community. What a day it turned out to be! I met Ardie and Clara Williams who was also running for BOE. But I also met trailblazers in building a better Teaneck – Gloria Wilson, Laverne Lightburn, Gwen Acree, Ron Costello, Chuck Powers, Barbara Toffler, Ray Moore, James Kinloch in Pat D’Onofrio’s living room!
I made it a point to get to know all of them, find out about every gathering, and shepherd my daughters (with their homework) to every meeting I could find. I listened and learned, met so many homegrown community activists. I wanted to be part of that world!
Around 2013 I became part of an organization called Teaneck 2020. Our purpose was to set goals for the Teaneck of 2020 and, hopefully, achieve them by encouraging and increasing voting participation. Little did we know what 2020 would bring – but Teaneck 2020 made me part of a community of activists, educated me about municipal realities, and encouraged me to become an effective public speaker. It’s really a wonderful life!.
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PREPARING TO VOTE WITH ADDITIONAL
INDEPENDENT INFORMATION
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.As Teaneck Voices readers prepare to vote, we respect the fact that you are our readers because you care enough about who governs – and how – to seek additional information and points of view.
For that reason, Teaneck Voices has constantly sought to provide our readers with information about where they can find sound independent election information so readers can make their own judgments as they vote. And for those of you who are mail-in voters, those decisions are now!
There are four forums for Teaneck elections this year. The first two are over. The League of Women Voters has already conducted its two forums: which both remain available on video from the League.
This week, on Wednesday, October 19, the Northeast Teaneck Block President’s Association (NETBPA) will conduct an electoral forum to include the 9 candidates who are running for the four 4-year term seats on the Teaneck Council. This forum is scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm and be held in-person in the Rodda Center’s 2nd Floor MP-1. It is expected that all 9 candidates will be in attendance. A video of the full forum is expected to be made available.
Next week, on Wednesday, October 26, NETBPA will conduct an electoral forum to include the 12 candidates who are running for the 5 seats with for either 3 or 1 year terms on the Teaneck Board of Education. This forum, too, is scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm and held in-person in the Rodda Center’s 2nd Floor MP-1.
One very efficient way for our readers to prepare for each of these forums is to compare and contrast candidate bios and positions on key questions that are found on the League of Women Voter’s 411 website. Of immediate interest are the responses the League has received from the Council candidates which can be found by clicking :https://www.vote411.org/candidate-contact
and at the appropriate box, typing in your address and clicking on the popup box below that repeats your address.
SINCE EVERY VOTER WILL CHOOSE AMONG THREE DIFFERENT TIMES TO VOTE, THEY WILL THEREFORE BE CHOOSING AMONG THREE DIFFERENT BALLOT CONFIGURATIONS. Hence it is a good idea to check out how your ballot will look - and to do so, Click Here
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SOMETHING TO REMEMBER AND CONSIDER | |
WITH AINRS COUNCIL SABOTAGES
TEANECK'S MASTER PLAN
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Why has Teaneck’s Council recently decided that labeling many areas of our town “blighted” should be the municipality’s primary development policy and program?
Teaneck Voices has shown that to-date the Areas in Need of Redevelopment program’s tax giveaways are big time, long-term financial losers.(Click Here).
Teaneck Voices also illustrated last week (Click Here) that AINR’s are more likely to delay and to block timely neighborhood betterment than to promote real and near-term neighborhood betterment .
That is why we asserted that designating these “blighted areas as Areas in Need of Redevelopment was both a waste of time and public moneys.
Today we add an additional indictment to the town’s “call them blighted” land use program and policy: We are convinced that Council’s doing so was and is designed to free Council and its land use boards from making land use choices coherent and harmonious with the goals, objectives and specifics of this Town’s Master Plan and its unequivocal commitment to:
- preserving “the character of existing low-density residential neighborhoods forming the predominant character of the Township”; and
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prohibiting the placement of new multi-unit facilities where they would “have detrimental effects on single-family residential neighborhoods”. (Click Here p. 4 & 5)
To validate this claim we will describe two stages of Council’s recent embrace of the blight-driven redevelopment process:
1) we remind our readers of where and how our Council suddenly “discovered” state statutes that allow it to meet secretly with and fund any developers it choses – Click Here.-[Council learned how to do this in a secretive retreat – a meeting of which the Town never produced any recording Click Here]; and
2) we explain how this AINR process frames up new development schemes that completely by-pass not only what the Master Plan pledges but also ignores all the existing land use regulations (eg., zoning, etc.) which this and prior Councils had placed in the Town code – Click Here;
How did Council Learn that it Could By-Pass the Town Master Plan?
Any lay person reading the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) knows how central municipal Master Plans are to every aspect of the state’s regular legislative program to govern coherent, open and fully deliberated land use planning through which municipalities can maintain their own town values in this densely populated state.
Creating a complete and current Master Plan is the first and primary responsibility of every town’s Planning Board. Every ordinance introduced by a municipal governing board (Council) that has even indirect land use impacts must first be referred to the town Planning Board to determine if the proposed new ordinance is substantially consistent with the Town’s Master Plan BEFORE the Council holds a public hearing and its vote to adopt or reject the new ordinance.
EXCEPT Teaneck’s current Council has NEVER respected the 2007 Master Plan, the only full Master Plan the Town has had in 25 years
Our Evidence?
1) Elie Y Katz, the then Town Mayor (who was thus automatically the Class 1 Member of the Planning Board) ABSTAINED from the Board’s S April 2007 Master Plan approval vote. (Click Here p.2)
2) The Town has never in 15 years completed the state- required Master Plan element which describes how the Town is to manage its conservation, recreation open space element. Just check the website copy of the Town’s Master Plan (Click Here – p. 98) Here is how the 2007 Master Plan language about the Conservation, Receation & Open Space element remains today:
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That promise of a Conservation, Recreation and Open Space Plan Element remains unfulfilled today 15 years later.
Indeed – the current Planning Board now continues into the 4th year its refusal actually to consider and approve the next Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) that had been prepared for it under Town contract in 2019. The draft OSRP is, in fact, the missing Master Plan element which has been due to the State since 2018!
Is it any wonder, then, that when Council found out that it could ignore the Master Plan through the use of AINRs it simply did not follow the Master Plan and began simply rewriting land use and zoning regulations. Council discovered that it need not cite the Master Plan at all if it wanted to designate an area as blighted. It found that if it wanted to approve a redevelopment plan than violated the letter and/or spirit of the Master Plan the state statute said it simply had to say so (N.J.S.A. 40A:12A-7).
(If in election debates, publications and elsewhere you see current Council or Planning Board designees pledging allegiance to the Town Master plan, check it out and contrast their pledges with what they have actually been doing on land use for the past 4 years.
Ask yourself, can you identify anywhere that Council has recently embraced Master Plan goals 2&3 to protect residential neighborhoods as the predominant character of Teaneck?)
Ask Yourself: Why have the two developers who have to-date actually submitted site plans to Council under the AINR banner included the term “Urban Renewal” in the name of their corporate AINR entity, their LLC?
The simple answer is that in order to qualify for the AINR-allowed tax breaks the Town has just awarded them, they were required to include “Urban Renewal” in the title of their entity..(Click Here to see the state statute.)
Actually, the more complete answer is that the state legislature thought it was writing a redevelopment statute for serious blight situations in aging urban areas (like sections of Camden). This Council has forsaken the suburban character of Teaneck to appropriate state redevelopment permissions meant for municipalities far different than Teaneck!
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MODEL AMERICA: OUR COUNCIL ON NATIONAL TV
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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Teaneck Voices has become aware that many of its readers missed either one or more of the four episodes of the MSNBC documentary, Model America or desire to go back and review some portion of it. The tragic story of how we lost the life of Teaneck’s 15-year-old Phillip Pannell 30 years ago remains worthy of our attention and understanding.
Of particular importance in the documentary, we believe, is the five-minute section beginning at minute 31 of the 4th segment where the 2020 issues related to the location of Black Lives Matter mural(s) in Teaneck and whether the name of Phillip Pannell would be permitted to be painted into the mural is addressed.
That 5-minute segment includes discussion from the zoom video of the September 8, 2020 Council meeting and specifically the widely-discussed Deputy Mayor Katz commentary about why he would not vote for a mural that said Phillip Pannell‘s name.
The documentary’s concluding depiction of the replanting of the Tree of Healing in Phillip Pannell’s memory in (Tryon) Brooks Park two months later is also worth re-watching for those of us who remember that important ceremony or would like to experience that uplifting moment if you missed it.
And, of course, access to the entire Model America documentary is important to many of our readers.
We have, then, explored how our readers can review all or part of the documentary. So far as we can determine, the quickest and most cost-effective way to do so involves taking a one-month subscription to NBC’s Peacock streaming channel and finding the Model America documentary among its offerings. (You will also have to wait out some ads) It will cost you $4.99 for a month and the quickest way to get to the Peacock sign-up page is to Click Here.
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DELAY IN HNMC'S PROPOSED NEW SITE PLAN:
A MESS GETS MESSIER
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Teaneck's land use boards have been regularly criticized in the past several years for failing to follow all the rules when scheduling agendas and hearings on important decisions. And when residents have sued the Town entities, they have often been successful. (The best recent example was resident success in securing fully integrated affordable and market housing in the new townhouse development at the former Holuba site).
Last week when an agenda item to approve two site plans proposed by the Holy Name Medical Center (HNMC) that are related to the Holy Name hospital zone expansion suddenly appeared on the Township website's October 13 Planning Board agenda, the Town received a letter from Robert Simon, Esq. the attorney who, representing 12 HNMC neighbors, has sued both the Town and the Planning Board about procedural and substantive problems with the Spring 2022 ordinances which approved that hospital zone expansion.
Attorney Simon's letter cited many mistakes made in the process by which those site plan agendas were noticed and developed. As a result at the PB 10/13 meeting, the hospital and the PB, guided by the PB's substitute (conflict) attorney who has replaced the PB's regular attorney (another long story), pulled the proposed site plans from the PB 10/13 agenda.
The HNMC attorney agreed that the hospital would need to begin anew the process of properly noticing affected residents and the public so that the site plans could be heard by the Planning Board at its 10/27 meeting. The letter written by Attorney Simon which achieved that delay is available on the Teaneck Voices website if you Click Here.
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WILL THE FORUM QUALIFY FOR MENTAL HEALTH AID? | |
At the Teaneck Board of Education’s October 12 Workshop meeting, Interim Superintendent Pinsak described how a new state program to provide increased aid for student mental health services will – as currently planned – cause Teaneck’s Forum mental health services program to be by-passed.
Pinsak’s description of the problem is found on the Board video beginning at (Click Here move cursor to 6 min & 30 sec). In the public input discussion which followed, many residents urged the Board and its Community Relations committee to make preservation of this state aid to the Forum a matter of the highest priority. It was clear that recovering this state aid had become a major BOE priority.
Teaneck’s Forum program is not the only similar program to be facing this aid-cut threat. Many other school systems fear that their mental health service programs will be excluded. See the Record’s 10/16 story which NJMG subscribers can find on line at NJMG (Click Here)
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UPCOMING MUNICIPAL EVENTS | |
Upcoming Public Meetings – 10/16 to 23, 2022
Teaneck Environmental Commission Meeting – October 19. 2022 at 7:30 pm. Zoom Access information as currently found on the Teaneck website is, in all probability, in error – but Teaneck Voices has no better information. Access as currently posted is Click Here and use passcode 397511.
Teaneck Voices will track improved access and agenda information as it becomes available and post the updates on its website at Click Here
Teaneck Board of Education Regular Meeting – Wednesday October 19 2022 at 8:00 pm. This meeting will be conducted in person in the Cheryl Miller-Porter Student Center – 3rd floor Teaneck High School. For the Zoom webinar (ability to make comments or ask questions) Click Here. The Agenda is not yet Posted
Teaneck Voices will track improved access and agenda information as it becomes available and post the updates on its website at Click Here
Senior Citizens Advisory Board (SCAB)–Thursday – October 20, 2022 at 1:30 pm.
Public access and opportunity for input limited by the Advisory
Board ordinance (*See ordinance below)
Board of Adjustment Special Meeting – CANCELLED
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*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”.
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TEANECK VOICES CONTINUES TO OFFER ITS
PRAYERS AND STRONG SUPPORT
TO THE BRAVE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM
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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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