Give them a round of applause

Ah, the Suburbanite's Opinion section... Where else can you soak up the flavor of the Teaneck of sixty years ago, sink your teeth into secretive post-election intrigues, and follow the latest development in the playgroup saga all on one tabloid page? You have to admire an editor who can cobble together such fine content week after week. Take a bow, Suburbanite staff.

But before we lavish all the praise on the first rate professionals who bring us our local weekly, let us remember those who help make the paper not only a pleasure to read, but also an educational experience week after week. I'm referring to you, local hatemongers. No, they could not have done it without you. You, too, deserve a pat in the back, not only for deftly linking the sketchy details of some playgroup spat with Zionist transgressions in the Middle East a couple of weeks ago, but also for this week's diagnosis of a "climate of Jewish clannishness so evident in Teaneck and elsewhere" and for the superb explication of how it is that "segregation whether race (sic) or religious breeds fear and contempt." How else would the poor benighted souls of Teaneck learn that "our public school children are exposed to this with the Asian population" who "lack the will to assimilate?"

Hopefully, action will be taken against this "clannishness" and faculty at the local schools will wake up to the fact that they are failing non-Asian students thanks to these wonderful letters. Thank you to the Suburbanite for printing such worthy correspondence and thank you to the esteemed letter writers from Teaneck and River Edge for their enlightening comments.

Birdsall view: the report in context

The Birdsall Engineering report on development opportunities in Teaneck did not break a lot of new ground. In pointing out in writing what laymen have concluded through common sense, the true value of the report does not lie in its content, but rather in its ability to serve as a general guideline and provide political cover for the steps needed to stir Teaneck from its economic torpor. At $80,000 plus, that may not be a bargain, but we could yet get our money's worth.

The recommendations of this report will not remake the landscape of Teaneck. Nor will they do the heavy lifting required to shift the homeowner tax burden. They do not even provide the Council a step-by-step guide to redeveloping Teaneck's commercial and industrial zones so as to maximize their value to the Township and its tax base. But anyone who had hoped that a report could do any of these was dreaming.

What Teaneck's taxpayers and their elected representatives got for their money is a reference document that ought to give them the confidence to move forward and remake Teaneck's regulations and zoning to accomodate the new realities of the local and regional economy. It's hard to believe that it takes a consulting study to make people realize it, but the days of Teaneck as the home of light industry are long past. Everybody realizes that there is plenty of unexploited potential in all of Teaneck's commercial districts, and that a little rebuilding could go a long way toward revitalizing them. We did not really need to pay someone to tell us that Teaneck Rd. could do with some pedestrian safety improvements and better code enforcement.

However, the reality is that it is a lot easier to marshal the resources necessary to make these changes with this kick in the pants from development professionals (think of them as personal trainers for an out of shape township that wants to get fit). The next steps seem clear. Teaneck's leadership ought to make the changes necessary to attract private investment into the Township in a non-threatening way. While the market to must be allowed to determine the priorities, it is quite clear that neighborhood concerns still predominate in Teaneck, and priority should be given to reinvigorating existing business zones before paving over parks.

Next stop: Penn Station?! One of the many recommendations

Rising tide lifting all boats

A familiar phenomenon often recurs when supporters and detractors of public education in Teaneck debate one another in venues such as this. Whether embittered, outraged, or simply astonished that Teaneck's well-funded school system delivers decidedly ordinary test results, a detractor will slap an unflattering label on Teaneck's schools. Advocates of the schools leap to the defense, citing their own positive experiences in the schools and the misleading nature of the aggregate statistics, which penalize the Teaneck schools for their socioeconomic diversity and mask the fact that the individual groups represented in the school system fare relatively well compared to their peer groups across the state.

There is still something vaguely unsatisfying about this response, though, and education officials are well aware of it. The fact that Teaneck's somewhat rare mix of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic categories accounts for its below Bergen County average proficiency rates does not bring much comfort. Not only does this statistical quirk portray the quality of Teaneck's schools unfavorably to observers, both inside and outside, but it highlights the achievement gap that exists within the schools and reinforces unfair stereotypes in the minds of students, faculty, parents, and others. Therefore, narrowing the range of educational outcomes among various reporting groups has become a priority within the district.

New figures from the Department of Education indicate some progress on this front at Teaneck High School (focusing on the two largest and most often cited racial groupings in the school). There are, of course, multiple ways that an achievement gap can be eliminated. For example, better students can flee the school system, lowering overall performance but narrowing the spread. Alternatively, the worst performers can boost their results and cut the gap. In the best of all worlds, everyone does better, with the scores of the lowest achievers rising faster than those of the highest achievers (because they have more room to rise), leaving you with better overall performance and a smaller discrepancy.

Since the 2002-2003 school year, the proficiency rate in mathematics for black students at Teaneck High has risen from 41.1 to 64.7. Over that period, the proficiency rate for white students has remained essentially flat around 88. This has propelled the overall pass rate in math from 58.4 to 77.1 and dramatically reduced the difference in performance between white and black students. On the language arts front, the gap has not shrunk much, but overall performance picked up, with 95.6% of white students now demonstrating proficiency vs. 85.6% back in 2002-2003 and 81.9% of black students reaching that standard vs. 68.6% in 2002-2003. This has boosted overall Language Arts proficiency to 86.9% vs. 77.1%.

While merely achieving "proficiency" as defined by these standardized tests is hardly an educational endpoint worth celebrating, it does serve as a useful minimum criterion for our schools, and happily, more of our students are getting there. And while there are still some stark differences among the test results of various groupings, these are diminishing through overall improvement, another welcome development. On the education front, things are okay and apparently getting better. The same cannot be said on the budgetary side. The prime target for critics of the public school system should be cost efficiency and not educational performance.

Due date

With over two months elapsed since Birdsall Engineering was put on an eight week contract to advise the Council on development strategy, it is about time for residents to examine the results of their $87,400 investment. Skeptical as many have become regarding the ability of the Township to relieve the homeowner tax burden by broadening the tax base in the near-term, one can still hold out hope that there will be something genuinely original and also practicable within the contents of the Birdsall report. The Council would still need to demonstrate an ability to implement any ambitious plans that might be contained within the report, but it might regain the sense of direction it may have lost after its awkward handling of the Brett Park issue.

Optimists who want to stay positive on the Birdsall Engineering report until it becomes available may want to ignore this recent news story regarding the firm's handling of a project right in its own backyard in Tinton Falls, NJ.

Whew. What was that all about?

Now that two of the most controversial and emotional issues facing Teaneck have been given the sendoff they deserved, what do we argue about next as we prepare to enter 2007? Though the outcome of the Mandate for Peace initiative was never really in doubt, one has to hope that the most recent public repudiation of an attempt by actvists to coopt the Council's voice will persuade these groups from wasting Teaneck's time with such stunts in the future. More significantly, the awkwardly handled and most probably ill-conceived Brett Park plan has been scuttled due to overwhelming public opposition and probable legal obstacles. Where will the next battleground be?

It seems safe to surmise that with no progress yet on development front, more controversial proposals will be coming down the pike and the Council and Planning Board will be spending a lot of time fielding complaints and mollifying residents over the coming months. The DMV issue probably has a little more left in it. Judging from rumblings in some quarters, employee relations may soon come back into focus as well. And if one prominent Teaneck resident and his anonymous informant have their way, there will be plenty more fallout from the 2006 Council elections to keep the chattering classes occupied. But for all the foreboding over controversies to come, at least one uncomfortable situation is now behind us: East Oakdene Ave. is officially renamed Puffin Way. Happy holidays!

Hit the nail on the head

There are plenty of reasons, both principled and practical, why the Teaneck Township Council has no business going anywhere near the Mandate for Peace initiative, regardless of how strongly certain residents may feel about the issue. But perhaps the best expression of the complete impropriety of this latest attempt to embroil municipal government in a national and international issue came from former Mayor Frank Hall during last night's stormy Council meeting (as reported by the Record today):

"I don't remember anyone's election platform being to appoint a defense secretary for Teaneck," Hall said. "None of you has the right to represent me in international matters as a council."

With all due respect to that august body, the Council ought to stick to street renaming ordinances and railroad noise complaints until otherwise instructed.

Another weapon in the NIMBYite arsenal

A recent court decision further empowers New Jersey municipalities to exercise control over development through the use of eminent domain. The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Mount Laurel Township's right to seize land (upon which its own planning board had approved the construction of housing units), for no other reason than the potential strain on the local school system from an influx of families with school age children.

Builders throughout the state may shudder at the increased risk their planned projects now face, even if they are completely in compliance with local zoning regulations. Neighborhood crusaders such as Teaneck's own Coalition for Community Preservation, on the other hand, should be pleased that local governments cannot claim to be powerless to halt developments that are unpopular. In granting such wide discretion to municipalities to act against private landowners, the Court has strengthened the hand of well-organized community activists at the expense of individuals. This may in fact serve to protect the public good from the self-interested behavior of individuals in some cases, but it does so by placing a lot of faith in the ability of government to make just decisions under difficult circumstances.

How does this shift the balance of power in Teaneck, if at all? A development minded Council will not be able to sit idly by and claim they can do nothing in the face of community protests against particular developments. If Teaneck officials wish to halt a particular project, they can do it, and the neighborhood activists know that. Claiming to be pro-development and in favor of boosting ratables is not all that uncontroversial anymore- it may actually require sticking one's neck out and risking the ire of the voters. What a delicious irony.

Insider redux

With the sequel to the Bergen Insider's surprisingly controversial first-edition hitting mailboxes recently, I was curious to see whether anything in the new monthly would validate the claims of at least one commenter on this blog that the paper is nothing but a front for the Bergen Party Democratic machine and a mouthpiece for its favored representatives in the Township Council's majority. A careful reading of the December issue does little to confirm those suspicions.

A bland news article on the "Pathways to the Future" report seemed to serve no particular political agenda, nor did the editorial urging residents to consider the points raised in the report and get involved. A comprehensive full-page listing of Teaneck's municipal salary ranges will do little to rally support for current elected officials. The only place one might detect that the paper gave the Council a pass is in the article entitled "A Proposal to Put a Parking Lot in Brett Park" (aren't news headlines supposed to contain verbs?). Rather than acknowledge the broad opposition to the Mayor's Brett Park plan, the Insider writes only that the proposal has "evoked the opposition of local and area environmentalists like the Sierra Club." Still, the article devoted plenty of space to the opinions of various dissenters to the plan.

If the Insider is a biased publication funded by a group seeking to subtly influence public opinion, it does a very good job of obscuring that- perhaps too good, as whatever influence may be lurking beneath is too subtle to be detected. All the second issue of the Insider reflects is a more upbeat approach to Township affairs, consistent with its stated purpose. Count me as unconvinced that this publication has any agenda beyond earning advertising dollars and increasing communal awareness and involvement, until more evidence to the contrary can be produced.

Warning sign

It's not clear whether or not the abrupt resignation of Teaneck's public information officer is itself a good or a bad thing. Were the services of a public information officer necessary to begin with? There was not too much debate surrounding the appointment, which was made by the Council with little fanfare several months ago. It is similarly difficult to discern any impact from the public information efforts, as the position was apparently a behind the scenes one, which makes it hard to answer the question of whether the $11,000 spent on public relations was a good investment for Teaneck, or whether we are better off that the other $14,000 already allocated will remain in Teaneck's coffers for the time being.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that there was a major management failure here. When an external service provider opts to resign and forego future payments rather than continue to work with you, that is a sign that something is not right. In his comments to the Record, Stan Steinreich alleges that he was not even able to extract a cogent job description from those who had hired him.

If correct, this is a shocking revelation. It suggests that half-baked ideas are being approved and funded by our municipal government with no process in place for monitoring their implementation. This is not only a recipe for the failure of potentially good ideas, but it is supremely wasteful of scarce financial resources. One shudders to think what may be going on with the far more expensive Birdsall Engineering contract and other larger projects.

Why public preschool?

Bergen Health & Life is not normally on my reading list. However, when the cover of the Holiday 2006 edition of this free, advertisement packed glossy magazine promised predictions on the future of Bergen County from nine local "luminaries," I couldn't help but pick it up. While many of the "predictions" were more like reflections on the current state of the art in drama, fashion, and other such lighter pursuits, one particular item caught my eye. In it, Bergen County Superintendent of Schools Aaron Graham opines on future development in public education in Bergen County, and says the following:

Expect to see a growth in early-childhood education. Locally, more districts are putting preschool programs in place; in five years, most will have an active half-day or full-day program. Many districts in our poorer, largely urban areas already have an early-childhood education requirement, but I think all schools will soon mandate it. Districts with greater needs will fund these programs with state aid; those that receive less outside money will rely on their own local taxes. The research points to the dramatic development children have prior to entering school -- the earlier we get them, the more positive an impact we can make.

The prediction may prove to be 100% accurate. Dr. Graham, of all people, ought to know. But even as increased enrollment in preschool programs would probably be a good thing for our youth and a boost to the educational performance of our schools, it is far less certain that state or local government should foot the bill for this.

From a fiscal perspective, one could certainly have chosen a better time to expand the definition of public education to include the early childhood years. Simply put, there is no money for this. Districts are having a hard enough time furnishing a quality education to school-age children at the current level of funding, and taxpayers are already shelling out about all they can right now. The large sums that would be required to add a whole new layer of infrastructure and personnel to the public education system in order to expand it to three and four year olds are not there for the taking.

But even if we could pay for it, should we? Should early childhood education be mandated, even if it is widely considered beneficial? If it should be mandated, or even just strongly encouraged, should the cost be borne by all taxpayers? I have a hard time seeing why the answer to any of these questions should be yes.

Sure, a Western European social democrat would not think twice about tossing this benefit onto the pile of others that the government (often inefficiently) provides. If one doesn't dream of abdicating ones decisions to an enormous nanny state, it becomes much harder to argue that preschool programs should not be the sole responsibility of parents or guardians. Yes, Dr. Graham, research does indicate that early childhood education is helpful. Great. So is proper nutrition, good hygiene, and sufficient exercise. If I raise a child, it is my responsibility to ensure that the child gets all of those things. Why shouldn't it also be my responsibility to see to it that my child is prepared to enter school?

There is no fine line or slippery slope here. Publicly funded primary and secondary education is there to ensure the continuance of our democracy and promote self-sufficiency and civic responsibility among citizens. It may be beneficial to attend preschool prior to undergoing mandatory schooling, but it is only incidental to accomplishing the objectives of public education. If you want your child to have this advantage, you ought to pay your own way or find someone else to help you do it. No, your child should not be penalized if you truly, honestly cannot afford both food and shelter and early childhood education. Everyone else should decide if it is truly a personal priority and budget accordingly.

Tax relief for Teaneck?

As more details of the plan to offer New Jersey homeowners substantial property tax relief emerge from Trenton, the plan appears less and less beneficial to Teaneck's situation. While many Teaneck households struggling to keep up with whopping property tax bills will get a substantial boost from a 20% state tax break, the Township of Teaneck's ability to raise revenue locally will not improve as much as some might have thought.

Here's why: the plan under consideration would only award a 20% tax credit to households earning under $100,000 per annum. While those earning more may end up with some relief, it is possible that only a little more than half of Teaneck's households will realize the full benefits of the plan.

The 2000 Census pegged Teaneck's median household income at $74,903. Nationally, real median household income rose nearly 10% in the period from 2000 to 2005. Assuming Teaneck followed the national trend and that the town maintained a constant mix of income levels over the past half decade, the median household income for Teaneck in 2005 would have been $82,327 and about 40% of households would have taken in more than $100,000. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that ballooning property taxes and the abnormally strong housing market conditions of the period from 2003 to early 2006 may have caused a number of seniors on fixed incomes to sell out to younger people (who would have had to have higher incomes to qualify for mortgages), which could put the proportion of households eligible for the full measure of tax relief closer to 50%.

All this means that what Trenton giveth, Teaneck may not be able to take away. By delivering targeted tax relief at those with more modest incomes, state legislators are not necessarily making it any easier for municipalities to plug budget holes by hiking taxes just a little bit more than they otherwise would. This plan is not about municipalities and school districts (though other pending reforms may help there), it is about families. The message remains the same- Teaneck officials will have to keep on focusing on cost savings and alternative sources of revenue for the foreseeable future.

Tempest in a teapot

This week's Suburbanite devotes its cover story to a recent incident that appears to reflect poorly on the Council, or at least the majority of the Council. How's that for a surprise? Despite the controversy over the Council's vote against reappointing a resident to a statutory commission responsible for Historic New Bridge Landing Park, allegedly on account of said resident's opposition to the Council's plan to consider paving over a portion of Brett Park for use as a parking lot, this is hardly a case of injustice, bullying, or ill-treatment by the Council. At worst, the Council or the Township Manager is guilty of a lack of consideration in not promptly informing the resident of the Council's decision. The gnashing of teeth and dire warnings about a Council intolerant of dissent contained in the Suburbanite article are misplaced here. This is business as usual and it is a-okay.

While it may seem as if a long serving and very dedicated volunteer was shunted aside because she did not pass a rather arbitrary and unfair litmus test, the truth is that the Council majority simply decided that a long serving and very dedicated volunteer did not represent its views or share its priorities. Should a widescale purge of existing advisory boards and commissions ensue, so be it. It is the prerogative of the Council to be represented and advised by those who share its views. Previous Councils packed boards and commissions with appointees that were kindred spirits and future ones will do the same. A politically savvy Council concerned about its future will tread lightly in doing this in order to avoid making too many enemies, but it will do this just the same.