Whoops! Teaneck Voices may unintentionally have led our readers to assume that if we had Workshop Meetings we would have transparency in our Council’s ideas and discussions about how Teaneck should be developed and by whom. We were only half right! Workshops have open, public discussions and interviews with developers and other vendors ONLY if Council puts them on the Workshop agenda.
And right now, why should they? There is a mechanism to discuss development, redevelopment, zoning and a variety of land use actions – and to meet with developers – in secret! That is, in secret from the Public!
This mechanism is the COUNCIL ZONING SUBCOMMITTEE. Like other Council subcommittees, this one can have only 3 members of Council. BUT – this subcommittee includes at least the Manager, the township lawyer, members of the Building Department, possibly representatives from the Planning Board and/or the Board of Adjustment and the Town Planner.
The present Council members of the Council Zoning Subcommittee are:
· Hillary Goldberg, Councilmember
· Michael Pagan, Mayor
· Mark Schwartz, Councilmember,
· Denise Becher, Councilmember, Council Alternate
The Zoning Subcommittee apparently meets one Friday a month. The Zoning Subcommittee minutes are now only released in Council agenda packets within 24 hours of the next Council meeting. The released minutes from the most recent Council Zoning Subcommittee meeting known to the public were from the Subcommittee’s July 11 meeting and solely published deeply embedded (Click Here p. 21-2) in the Council agenda packet less than 24 hours before the August 8 Council meeting. If one did not know to go looking for them there who would find them?
We are making some progress on governmental transparency with this new Council. The most recent minutes (for July) did include a list of meeting participants and topics. There apparently will be minutes of recent or future Subcommittee meetings similarly posted at some time in the future on the Township website. But the Town’s important agenda decisions are still shrouded in these closed meetings – and there is no way for the public to know they are coming until several hours before Council starts.
If the residents/taxpayers/stockholders of Teaneck are really demanding openness and transparency, WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THE ZONING SUBCOMMITTEE?
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