A lesson in communications strategy

After taking his lumps last week for a bizarre-sounding scheme to allow a New Milford restaurant owned by members of a politically well-connected family to pave over Teaneck parkland, Mayor Eli Katz launched an information campaign of his own in an attempt to better explain the rationale between this politically risky undertaking. Describing the potential deal with Sanzari's New Bridge Inn as a "win-win," Katz went on to outline certain terms of the deal that could substantially upgrade Brett Park and make the New Bridge Landing area more visitor friendly.

Version B certainly sounded a lot better than Version A. Despite the absence of many key details, when laid out more clearly, the plan is not a non-starter. Beneath the layers of spin, there may be a well-conceived model for how Teaneck can turn a collection of largely empty slogans about finding new sources of tax revenue into a workable plan. Reasonable people may quarrel about the details of this particular plan, but the principles behind the idea are worth considering, even if they are not necessarily suitable for Brett Park.

The question is: could the initial backlash have been avoided, or better yet, are there lessons here to be learned when it comes time to introduce future initiatives? To some extent, all negotiations are sensitive and someone will always have to be kept out of the loop before things come to fruition. And nobody wants to repeat the mistake of the premature announcement (cf. Cedar Lane Starbucks).

However, there is a difference between maneuvering quietly behind the scenes in a way that discreetly involves key opinion makers and blatantly keeping the public in the dark before quickly springing a fully formed plan upon them right before it is up for vote. The former is almost always preferable to the latter.

Can we get there? I believe the citizens of Teaneck have a role to play in prodding officials to operate more openly. Next time around, residents ought to press candidates for public office more aggressively for detailed plans instead of allowing them to run successful campaigns based on nothing more than vague promises to boost ratables or broaden the tax base.

Some of the onus, of course, falls on the politicians. Had Katz presented a plan last spring to forge public-private partnerships to upgrade Teaneck's parks and raise revenue as a part of his pro-development agenda, he might have lost a few votes here and there, but he might also have won a clearer mandate to cut deals that might rearrange some parkland in exchange for other benefits to the taxpayers. By simply saying what the largest number of people wanted to hear, the Mayor maximized his vote count at the expense of weakening his hand. As a consequence of the fact that the public never had a chance to vote on his real platform, Katz and his Council allies are forced to operate in the shadows and use the brute force method to accomplish their policy goals. They may end up achieving the outcomes they seek, which may in turn end up doing good for Teaneck, but they're not building a long-term foundation of trust that will bring the institutional change necessary to have their vision for Teaneck's future implemented over the long term. The good news is that I think they are beginning to recognize that.