Successful and efficient municipal governments are the product of experienced and competent municipal administrators (in Teaneck’s case, the Town Manager and Deputy Manager) working effectively with legislative bodies (in Teaneck’s case, its Council) and statutory boards to define and implement a timely municipal policy that reflects the values of its residents while evolving to meet current and future challenges.
If municipalities are fortunate their administrations have been able to plan so that when retirements and other factors require new appointments, the choices for key positions are somewhat predictable. And if towns are lucky, transitions to new leadership come at times of relative stability so new decisions are relatively uncomplicated.
The disconcerting news that Teaneck’s much-appreciated Manager Dean Kazinci will be leaving in two months and that his Deputy Tom Rowe also plans to depart, has been exacerbated by the family emergencies currently faced by both leaders. The Council has selected a search firm to help find a successor but there is no good news even rumored from that process. There is also the immediate loss due to the health of experienced Zoning Officer Dan Melfi and the loss of a relatively new Planning Board attorney to the state judiciary. The 2nd bidding process for that attorney appointment yielded only one applicant this week.
These key personnel changes are challenging enough. But even a cursory look at the immediate horizon reveals how many absolutely critical decisions await resolution in a town already facing sharp divisions among its diverse demographics.
A new website is apparently being created by a contractor with no prior New Jersey experience. The current website remains complex and incomplete (For example, minutes missing for each of our land use boards are in the double digits).
A new Master Plan draft has been authored by a junior planner from the firm whose own personnel changes have been dramatic. Although we have been gathering information about resident views for a year, the Planning Board only finally has been handed the task of guiding it two weeks ago. The Board must now simultaneously select a new attorney to guide them legally as they assume their Master Plan responsibilities.
Council and the departing Manager have been struggling to find a way to adequately and safely fund essential services without adopting a budget whose high property taxes cause an upheaval or exodus.
Two plus decades of serious disputes with the state’s Department of the Environment have just been mended – but the reconciliation involves bureaucratic minutia that could remain unresolved before personnel changes at both Teaneck and the State.
Organized groups of residents actively oppose the use of Areas In Need of Redevelopment (blighted areas) as a way to specify development priorities. But the Town has made prior commitments on these very projects that are alienating neighborhood residents and their supporters. No easy solution is apparent!
The Township has finally accepted that it can’t find any place to move its River Road DPW/Recycle center out of town. But it has just started the process of sorting out how to address the huge costs and logistics of remediating this seriously contaminated public property that the Township has neglected for 60 years.
As is indicated repeatedly in Teaneck Voices, the Council must somehow learn how to work together sufficiently to make governing Teaneck a real possibility.
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