The wisdom of our non-partisan system

We don't want any

A glance at the Bergen County political scene is enough to turn your stomach. As area Republicans gird for battle in the upcoming primary elections, one is reminded once again of how fortunate we in Teaneck are to have a non-partisan municipal government. As the never ending saga of the fractured Bergen County Democratic Party machine continues to unfold through incessant letters to the editor in local papers and back and forth recriminations, we can be thankful that these messes hardly spill over into our town.

Lest our satisfaction cause us to let down our guard, let us be mindful of the fact that although our system is non-partisan, our elected officials are not free of strong party affiliations. One new Council member holds a high profile leadership position in a local partisan organization and another has built a career around polishing the images of candidates from a certain party and helping them communicate their messages. However, by preventing these public servants from overtly tying their local political fortunes to a larger organization with its own goals, our system goes a long way toward limiting factionalization and forcing each elected official to vote his or her conscience on each issue rather than compelling them to toe a party line.

And while our non-partisan system provides us with some safeguards against larger organizations from out of town turning Teaneck into a battleground for their partisan ambitions, it does not protect us from all the evils of politics. Earlier this month we saw how easily whispered rumors or half-truths, improper attack ads, and slanderous campaign managers can poison the atmosphere and turn an important civic debate into an acrimonious battle royale.

But it is reassuring that these lapses still have the power to arouse our indignation. Most of us have long since lost the ability to feel anything other than disgust at the sordid state of politics on the county, state, and national level. Happily, we still hold ourselves to a higher standard in Teaneck, and that is due in large part to the communal feeling fostered by our refusal to split off into parties and factions. This is worth remembering as this election season fades into memory and we move on to the task of improving life in Teaneck.

The great unifying issue

If there is a single local cause that attracts support from all quarters of Teaneck, it would have to be a repeal of Bergen County's blue laws. No doubt there are individuals in Teaneck who prefer to have the area highways clear on Sunday, but most others recognize that the blue laws remain in force more for the benefit of Paramus than Teaneck. Though it has been thirteen years since the blue laws were last put to a public vote, the resounding margin by which Bergen voters approved them in 1993 has deterred opponents of the restrictions on Sunday commercial activity from agitating for another countywide vote. Instead, they have pursued other avenues for obtaining legislative relief from the measures.



Now the Suburbanite's Howard Prosnitz reports on the latest initiative, led by State Senator Loretta Weinberg, a longtime opponent of the blue laws. Following her abortive attempt in 2003 to pass legislation permitting municipalities to hold their own votes on the blue laws, Weinberg is back at it again. Prosnitz presents comments from Mayor Kates and Deputy Mayor Katz attempting to rally support for new "pinpoint legislation" that would lay out a series of conditions by which a municipality could qualify for its own referendum on abolishing blue laws. Presumably, only Teaneck would meet the standard, and therefore the bill would be less threatening to avowed opponents of any weakening of the status quo (can you picture the legislative aide writing in a clause like "in order to qualify, the town's name must contain the name of a hot drink followed by the name of a body part connecting the head to the torso?").

While a large number of Teaneck residents will strongly support Senator Weinberg in her latest attempt to free the Township of the burden of the blue laws for both economic and lifestyle reasons, it seems that this new strategy is doomed to the same fate that befell previous tries. This tack has the potential to draw the ire of two different groups who in the past have been on opposite sides of the blue laws issue.

• The residents of Paramus and other towns criss-crossed by major commercial thoroughfares who enjoy the peace and quiet afforded them by Sunday restrictions will pester their state legislators to block this backdoor attempt to repeal the blue laws. They will reason that if one town manages to get rid of them, other towns will soon follow suit, and then the stores that are so vital to the health of their town will renew the battle to abolish blue laws in Paramus as well or move elsewhere.
• The shopping mall operators and store owners of Paramus will likely move to defeat this initiative which could put their businesses at risk. While Teaneck does not have the zoning necessary to attract serious competitors (until the Township asks the residents who live near Rt. 4 to take one for the team), if other municipalities in the area succeed in circumventing the blue laws, it will be even more undesirable to be closed on Sundays in Paramus. Those who have large investments in commercial real estate or long term leases in Paramus locations will not sit back and watch their values plummet without a fight.

Hopefully Senator Weinberg has a few tricks up her sleeve, because as of now it still looks like a long shot.

Goodbye, county government?

The Record's Oshrat Carmiel reports today on former freeholder and gubernatorial candidate Todd Caliguire's ambitious platform in the race for the Republican nomination for County Executive (primary on June 6th).

Caliguire certainly demonstrates aptitude for telling voters what they want to hear, promising a thorough reform of county government through the elimination of wasteful spending on services that are duplicated on the state and local levels. Given that county government has no natural constituency as it is largely invisible to residents, Caliguire's plans should be music to the ears of the Bergen County electorate.

Unfortunately, Caliguire's bold "Blueprint for Downsizing County Government" runs up against the reality of a State of New Jersey tottering on the brink fiscal crisis. According to the article, Caliguire hopes to shift the burden of many significant budget items off of Bergen County and onto the State. We don't need the ensuing quotations from Caliguire's opponents and a spokesman for the Department of Community Affairs to know that the chances of success are two: slim and none.

The virtue of Caliguire's unconventional thought on the place of county government and its programs is that it may stimulate officials and voters to think in a radical new way about how things could be done differently. While few of the ideas put forward are likely to survive in tact even if Caliguire were to win election, it may be time to examine the institutions of government we have created and reevaluate whether they are suitable for the current and future realities of 21st century life in New Jersey.

The danger in making such radical proposals is that they can be easily dismissed as unrealistic and therefore ignored.

The outcome of the June 6th primary between Caliguire and County clerk Kathleen A. Donovan may determine whether the big plans Caliguire has formulated are tossed aside completely or whether they become a part of the ongoing dialogue in Bergen County for years to come.

Will he be forced to apologize again?

In this week's Suburbanite (issue dated May 24, 2006), Howard Prosnitz covers the continuing fallout from the recent Council elections. After a brief detour from the saga of the anonymous anti-Teaneck New Beginnings campaign into Senator Weinberg's complaint against Charlie Gonzalez's financial disclosures, Prosnitz dives back headfirst into the mystery surrounding the allegedly libelous attempts to rally opposition to the TNB slate through mailings and recorded phone messages. Little of the information presented should be new to Teaneck Blog readers, as it has discussed by various posters over the past two weeks.

What is new, however, is a series of on the record comments from some of the participants in the election drama. Most notable for their anger, bitterness, and blatant use of the politics of division are the remarks by none other than Joe Harris (pictured), campaign manager for the TNB team. You may remember Joe Harris as the man who first attempted to whip up anti-Orthodox Jewish sentiment by circulating a letter accusing the four candidates who happened to identify as Orthodox Jews of complicity in bigotry after the publication of an article profiling them as a group in an obscure publication called The Jewish Voice and Opinion. Shortly after, Harris was forced to backtrack and issue a public apology for his hurtful comments.

It seems that Harris succeeded in removing his foot from his mouth just in time to embarrass himself again. Handed the opportunity to exit with dignity in a sympathetic article that highlights the victimization of TNB, Harris just could not restrain himself from falling into the same bad habits.

"The New Beginnings slate did better than everybody else except the four Orthodox candidates," Harris notes, lest anybody forget the personal religious affiliation of those who outpolled his candidates (just for the sake of clarification, Lizette Parker, a TNB candidate, did attract more votes than fellow Council member elect Adam Gussen).

Then Harris goes on to make a gratuitous and offensive comment that ought to end his political career in disgrace and shame.

Referring to Councilman elect Elnatan Rudolph, who captured the two-year seat in a close race that did not involve a representative from the TNB slate, Harris says:
"Nobody knows anything about him. There is no basis for electing him other than his religion and I am opposed to electing candidates on that basis."

Not only is this inaccurate, as Rudolph actively participated in candidate forums and made his views on a variety of issues clearer than his main opponent ever did, but this is insulting to the voters of Teaneck and extremely disrespectful to Rudolph. It betrays an outlook colored by religious bias, in which Harris apparently views people by what form of religion they practice rather than as individuals to be judged on their own merits.

One is certainly entitled to criticize Rudolph and consider him an unworthy choice for Council because one disagrees with him on the issues or sees him as inexperienced. But to reduce him to a representative of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group is vile. There is no place for that in Teaneck politics (or in any other part of an enlightened society for that matter). A comment like that should make Harris every bit as much of a pariah in Teaneck as whoever it was that sent out illegal campaign literature or spread malicious rumors about certain candidates. If Harris had said there was no basis for electing a certain candidate other than the color of his or her skin or his or her gender, he'd never show his face again. Why should this be any different?

The more he opens his mouth, the more it looks like the voters of Teaneck made the right decision in keeping Joe Harris and those who would associate with him far away from municipal government. Let's hope that is the last we hear from Joe Harris for a long time to come.

Is Teaneck overrun with religious institutions?

Most of the time, peace and serenity reign supreme in Teaneck. From time to time, however, emotions run high and passions are inflamed. For example, when a religious institution or charitable organization seeks to acquire a new property in Teaneck for the purpose of expansion or relocation, it is often met with stiff resistance from neighbors and other community members.

There are two common arguments that the opposition usually advances to oppose the new development-

1. The proliferation of religious or charitable institutions in Teaneck has already taken so many properties off of the tax rolls that giving up another ratable unduly harms the overburdened Teaneck taxpayer
2. Granting permission to a religious or charitable institution to move in will change the character of the neighborhood/alter traffic patterns/create noise and light pollution, etc.

The latter of these arguments, of course, is a neighborhood matter for the Zoning Board to rule on, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case.

The former argument, however, is a powerful one that renders this issue a matter of concern for residents throughout Teaneck, if its assumptions are correct.

Let's look at the facts. According to records from the Bergen County Tax Assessor, Teaneck currently contains 73 properties classified as "Church & Charitable Property." Of the 69 other municipalities in Bergen County, only Hackensack has more. Of course, since Hackensack and Teaneck are the two most populous towns in Bergen County, this may not be so remarkable. After adjusting for population using figures from the 2000 Census, it turns out that Teaneck ranks 8th in Bergen County in the category of "Church & Charitable Property" (FYI, Englewood, Midland Park, Closter, Cresskill, & Franklin Lakes are the top 5 most religious -- or most charitable -- municipalities in Bergen County according to that measure).

It might be argued that this analysis doesn't really capture the actual taxation effect of these properties. A given municipality may have a large number of religious institutions, but if they are all located on small lots in an undesirable part of town, their tax exemptions probably don't take much of a bite out of the municipality's revenues. So one may really need to look at the value of the religious and charitable properties that are removed from the tax base relative to the total value of the taxable properties in a given town in order to see how significant they are.

Using this approach and relying on 2005 data from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs' Abstract of Ratables, Teaneck ranks 9th in Bergen County in terms of the magnitude reduction to the potential tax base by religious and charitable institutions (and 177th out of 566 municipalities statewide).

How much is the Teaneck tax base directly* impacted by religious and charitable institutions? If all religious and charitable institutions in Teaneck were suddenly obligated to pay taxes based on the assessed value of their properties, Teaneck would collect an additional 1.9% in property taxes. The state average for this metric is 1.6%.

This suggests that the critics may be right that this is an issue worthy of consideration in Teaneck, though not an area where Teaneck is at any kind of extreme.



* I say "directly" because it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify any enhancement to the value of the dwellings and commercial properties in Teaneck on account of their proximity to houses of worship or other charitable institutions.

The rule of 566

The drumbeat for shared services keeps getting louder. Teaneck Township Council candidates campaigned on it, the County Executive promoted it at a March conference at the Marriott at Glenpointe, and the New Jersey School Boards Association endorsed the concept for its members in a recent newsletter.

A large chorus of voices agrees that local governments and school districts need to learn the lesson that the corporate world learned long ago. Efficiency is improved when redundancies are eliminated. Consolidation improves the longer term prospects for survival. There is no sense in having each local government operate its own Department of Public Works or having each local school district keep a full complement of special education coordinators on staff. Cities, towns, and boroughs can band together so that each one does not have to build up the costly infrastructure and bureaucracy needed to sustain self-contained units.

Recent developments have increased the urgency with which municipalities and school districts ought to be pursuing shared services. If it wasn't already obvious, it is now abundantly clear that state aid can no longer be relied upon to cover local funding shortfalls. For several years now, the onus has been on local officials to find ways to rein in spending or find additional sources of revenue to maintain programs and services. Now we know that there is little chance of a return to the days when Mother New Jersey could be counted on to kick a few extra bucks to make things work.

If such initiatives are so attractive and so widely supported, what is standing in the way of implementing them? Cynics will point to the glacial pace of change in government and the fact that politicians' actions rarely keep up with their rhetoric. Others might explain that shuttering local departments in favor of larger regional ones threatens jobs. There is more to it than that, though.

The real obstacle to meaningful consolidation and cost cutting through shared services is the concept of home rule. New Jersey has 566 self-governing municipalities and 593 school districts, most of whom zealously preserve the autonomy granted to them in the State Constitution at great cost to their taxpaying residents. The tug of war for power and influence between local and county governments or municipal governments and school districts stands in the way of progress and consumes valuable resources.

Whether or not they realized it at the time, new Council members who campaigned on a platform of shared services have committed themselves to put aside the petty jealousies of home rule and to aggressively search for ways to achieve cost savings through shared services. This is one campaign promise that will not be forgotten. I anxiously await the first proposal.

Postscript- An interesting piece by Mitchell Blumenthal titled "Tough Talk on Home Rule, But Is It Just Talk?" discusses this hot button issue in Sunday, May 28, 2006's New Jersey section of The New York Times.

Revaluation speculation

Reading The Suburbanite can give you a pretty skewed view of the world. Not only do you come away with the impression that spell checking has gone out of fashion and that life sixty years ago was incomparably better than it is today, but you also get a strong dose of housing market propaganda from the publication's largest advertisers- the realtors. If the area's agents are to be believed, it is always a great time to be buying a house in northern NJ, where the housing market is perpetually healthy and strong. Recent statistics from the National Association of Realtors, however, paint a different picture.

The reason I bring this up is not to warn away potential homebuyers or promote my own view on the state of the housing market. There are plenty of superior sources for news and opinions of that variety. This information is pertinent because Appraisal Systems, Inc. is in the process of revaluing Teaneck's residential properties for the purposes of bringing Teaneck into compliance with a state mandate. As the housing market itself appears to be at a major turning point, there is a danger that homeowners will be presented with valuations that reflect the overheated market conditions in place just a short while ago rather than the considerably softer conditions we are experiencing today. I encourage homeowners to stay involved in the process and remain informed.

I do not mean to raise any alarms. There is no specific reason to believe that properties will be valued at anything other than fair and accurate levels. However, there is a heightened potential for a misstep here given how abruptly the housing market appears to have changed direction and it is worthwhile to be aware of that fact.

Of course, if every property in Teaneck is systematically overvalued by a common percentage, nobody would necessarily lose out. The revaluation and reassessment serve to update the tax records and make sure that improvements and other changes are fairly reflected in the distribution of the tax burden across properties. If individual properties are marked too high, however, certain people would be faced with large, unjustified tax increases next year.

It takes a village

Throughout his unsuccessful campaign for a spot on the Teaneck Township Council, John Annillo championed the idea of a transit village in Teaneck to boost ratables and attract commuters who would support local businesses. Now more evidence has emerged that such developments can indeed boost revenues without putting additional strain on the school system. Here's hoping that more consideration is given to this idea.

They just don't get it

A direct quote from today's article by Brian Aberback in the Bergen Record:

School board President Judith McKay said school budget problems are a funding rather than spending issue.

"If the state had given us the aid they should be giving us, we would not be in this situation," she said.

1,000!

Teaneck Blog has already recorded over 1,000 unique visits since first appearing just over a week ago. Thank you for reading the blog and contributing your insightful comments and opinions. I am gratified to see that Teaneck Blog has already become a prime destination for sharing information and debating the issues that matter to the residents of Teaneck.

Special regular meeting was business as usual

Turns out there was more than $534,000 in available cost savings. At last night's special regular meeting of the Teaneck Township Council, Township Manager Helene Fall presented a list of other non-essential expenditures that could have resulted in a total reduction of $1.1 million to the rejected school budget. Good news for taxpayers? Not really. All it meant was that a different set of budget reductions could be swapped in instead of those line items previously designated for removal. No resolution to trim the budget more significantly in light of these new revelations was considered.

In the final analysis, what is irksome about this process is not really the scope of the budget reductions. The problems with Teaneck's bloated educational budgets are structural and are unlikely to be resolved through a Council review of a single year's expenditures.

It is the lack of commitment shown by the Council to finding creative ways to protect residents from escalating tax bills that is so galling. At one point during yesterday's meeting, Councilman Paul Ostrow observed that the $400k+ allocated to playground improvements was not strictly necessary. This line item was nonetheless restored to the budget in full despite indications last week that it would be dropped. Why was there no enthusiasm for staggering the upgrades over time or finding some other creative way to economize? Council members were simply going through the motions.

The headline that will come out of this meeting will likely read "Freshman Sports Saved," and most Teaneck residents will applaud that. I am pleased that a program that meant so much to its participants was spared the ax. It doesn't really cost that much anyway. But the real takeaway for Teaneck residents is that all rhetoric aside, this Council has no appetite for making hard fiscal decisions.

Postscript- The Bergen Record covers the topic in Thursday, May 18th's edition. The playground improvements will indeed be carried out over a period of time rather than all at once.

Number crunching

By law, the Council has fulfilled its statutory obligation to review the school budget in the wake of its April rejection by the voters. The symbolic 0.63% dent in the Board of Ed's spending plans is enough to close the issue. However, it is almost certainly not what the electorate had in mind, and it is unlikely to satisfy the Teaneck voters.

To be fair, the Council operated with one hand tied behind its back as it attempted to find places to trim. The Board of Ed was uncooperative, refusing to follow protocol and hold a joint public session with the Council during which they might be forced to admit that not every penny of the $84.8 million they had requested was absolutely necessary. That meant, of course, that the Board of Ed was also foregoing its right to stick up for its requests. But the BoE figured it could afford to run the risk of the Council overcutting in its absence, knowing full well that in a session scheduled one day before Election Day, there was little risk that any Council member would argue forcefully for significant cuts. The BoE was right.

This means that a rare opportunity to review the BoE's expenditures with a fine toothed comb has been missed. That does not mean that others cannot go through the exercise, though. If there were a political will to heed the voters and rein in the BoE's spending, what areas could come in for more careful scrutiny?

The website of New Jersey's Department of Education contains a treasure trove of pertinent data. Here are a few figures that stand out:

• Teaneck's total comparative cost per pupil (one of two measures of total per pupil expenditures supplied) stood at $13,256 for the 2004-05 academic year, 18.7% above the state average. Among neighboring towns, Bergenfield, Bogota, Hackensack, Leonia, Ridgefield, New Milford, and Ft. Lee all manage to come in below the state average, so it is not just a function of geographic location. Paramus and Englewood also came in above the state average, but only Englewood's per pupil spending was higher than Teaneck's.
• Teaneck HS' average class size was 20.5, above the 19.2 statewide average. Englewood's was 16.1 and Paramus' was 15.4.
• Teaneck's per pupil spending on maintenance ($1,778) was 36% above the statewide average and well above that of all neighboring towns.
• Teaneck's per pupil spending on administration ($1,484) was 20% above the statewide average. In the area, only Bogota spends more per student on administration. However in recent years, steps appear to have been taken to reduce this and the number of students per administrator has risen slightly above the statewide average.
  
• Teaneck's per pupil spending on support ($1,773) was 3% above the statewide average, though in the area only Paramus and Englewood expended more.
• Teaneck's per pupil spending on classroom instruction stood at $8,002, 21% above the statewide average and well above all other districts in the area. The bulk of this expense was teacher salaries and benefits, as the average faculty salary was $69,137, 31.5% above the statewide average. Though Teaneck teachers were slightly more experienced than the statewide average, this does not fully account for the gaping discrepancy, as Ft. Lee's faculty members had significantly more experience than Teaneck's and still earned 5.6% less.

Given that the generous contracts that have been awarded to Teaneck's teachers and administrators are not subject to renegotiation, the most significant portion of the budget remains untouchable (for now). The area most amenable to further cuts in the near term appears to be maintenance. Given the statewide push for more local and regional sharing of services and the lip service paid to this idea by many of the candidates for Council, this is probably the best place to start. Will they do it?

Blunt axes

Well, the numbers are in and the results are staggering. Handed a mandate to reduce the size of the Board of Education's proposed budget back in April, the Council has managed to lighten the load of the overburdened Teaneck taxpayer by slashing a whopping $534,000, or 0.63%, off of the defeated Board of Education budget. What the voters hated at $84,800,000 they're sure to love at $84,266,000.

It's not entirely clear who the taxpayers of Teaneck have to blame for this farce.

• Is it the Board of Education, who managed to evade the Council's calls for joint public meetings to review the budget? Their gamesmanship appears to have been rewarded as their budget has been left largely untouched.
  
• Is it the Council, for acting timidly despite the fact that an electorate that had rubber stamped every proposed budget since 1998 stood up and demanded that this one be reduced?
• Is it the attitude that prevails in some quarters (and expressed by defeated Teaneck New Beginnings candidate Ronald Schwartz in one candidate forum) that the 'no' vote was more a reflection of voter frustration over mismanagement and corruption than it was about the skyrocketing tax burden? It's worth noting that this spin is not credible given that Teaneck was hardly the only district to vote down a school budget in 2006. In fact, the New York Times reported on May 7 that this year's rejection total was the fourth-highest of the past three decades.
  

In the end, there is more than enough blame to go around. But is there any accountability?

The healing is on hold

The Record's Brian Aberback reports that State Sen. Loretta Weinberg has taken up the mantle of campaign finance law enforcer with gusto. She is pointing the finger at Charlie Gonzalez, who came up short in his bid to win election to the Council earlier this week. According to Weinberg, Gonzalez was likely in violation of campaign law for not filing the proper paperwork identifying the sources of his campaign financing and detailing his outlays. She plans to file a complaint and seek an investigation. Gonzalez cited his own inexperience in his defense, but Weinberg is unmoved.

Given that Weinberg is going after a defeated candidate and that this is Bergen County politics, everybody's first instinct is to dig for an ulterior motive. The Record got Weinberg on record denying that Gonzalez's position in county government and potential ties to the Democratic Party leader, an old foe of Weinberg's, were in play here. One other possibility comes to mind- could Weinberg be digging for information that might harm Councilmen-elect Gussen and Rudolph, who were also featured in Gonzalez's last glossy mailing?

Up for grabs

Some proposals from the losing candidates in this week's Council elections that are ripe for the taking-

1) Teaneck New Beginnings had one plank in their platform that the new Council would do well to take up- increased recycling collections. Once a month pickup of a limited subset of a household's recyclables just doesn't cut it. The Recycling Depot is not only unpleasant on account of the surly employees who staff it, it is hazardous and a potential source of liability.

2) Why not answer Howard Rose's call for municipal government to become more transparent by promptly posting important information, including meeting proceedings, on the web? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to list that relatively inexpensive achievement on your campaign literature four years hence?

3) How about a 1% tax on commercial establishments and large institutions such as Holy Name Hospital and FDU with a five-year sunset provision? Just kidding! That one is better left on the scrap heap.

Thursday's press roundup

• The obligatory post-election "healing" article appears in The Bergen Record.

• The Suburbanite (published prior to election results becoming available) covers reaction to the report from Council's special task force on relations between management and uniformed union employees. The choicest quotes in the article are the veiled and not-so-veiled threats issued by Lt. Steven Librie at the May 2 Council meeting.

Some observers feel that the pressure from the unions that got the investigation launched and dictated the makeup of the task force also succeeded in influencing the contents of the report, which seemed to be designed to placate the unions. Were Township Manager Helene Fall and Police Chief Paul Tiernan thrown under the bus in order to keep the peace and stem the tide of lawsuits?

• The Suburbanite's Howard Prosnitz must have writer's cramp because he also writes about Teaneck residents who joined an anti-war rally on April 29, a Holocaust commemoration at THS, a firefighter's heroics on Emerson Ave., the opening of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy's trail near Overpeck Park, and best of all, a stormy session of the Planning Board, complete with accusations and recriminations.
  

The Planning Board's bitter internal battle over townhouse development near the New Milford border could be a harbinger of things to come as newly-elected officials who have promised further development to increase ratables clash with holdover appointees who hold open space sacred above all else. This bears watching.

Coming soon?

The Airing of Grievances

Having failed to get a resolution condemning the TBTA from the Teaneck Township Council, the Teaneck mosque members who were allegedly wrongfully detained on the Triborough Bridge have taken their fight to the media.

This is certainly a more appropriate outlet for their anger and frustration, but it is unclear exactly what they would like to have happen here. Are they preparing for a lawsuit (in the great tradition of Teaneck, America's most litigious town), just protesting the ill-treatment they received, or what? Stay tuned.

Analysis: Election post-mortem

Key takeaways for the losing candidates (in no particular order)...

Schwartz, Crowley- They will certainly blame the negative campaigning they faced just before Election Day, but the wide margin by which they were defeated (they each missed the cut by well over 500 votes) belies this claim. Bottom line: they were well enough organized & well enough financed to hit back forcefully and they did. It was their message and their affiliations that were rejected by the voters. In a campaign in which easing the property tax burden was the number one issue, they chose to align themselves with the interest groups who have their hands in the Township's coffers and they paid the price for that. They also made the mistake of galvanizing their opposition through the untoward actions of their campaign manager Dr. Joseph Harris, proving that not all publicity is good publicity.

Hennig- Personal popularity could not trump the fact that it was a bad year to be a candidate from the Board of Education given all that's gone on there and the still fresh voter outrage. Add to it that campaigning on a platform of shared services among the B of E and the Township without having achieved that as a Board member rang hollow with some voters.

Gonzalez- By all accounts a genial fellow and a good campaigner who couldn't project a serious message. Promising Starbucks? Oh, please. Telling a candidate forum that if given a hypothetical $10,000,000 windfall to spend you'd use it to upgrade sports facilities was probably not a great idea either.

Mian- Gets points for originality in proposing to levy a 1% tax on businesses & tax-exempt institutions such as Holy Name Hospital and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Loses points for a poor grasp of economic principles- higher taxes on businesses are a disincentive for businesses to come to Teaneck and will only erode an already narrow tax base. The voters seem to have understood that.

O'Brien- Some good practical ideas. Not much of a campaign effort. A steak with no sizzle. But he contributed positively to the dialogue as he was one of the few candidates with actual policy prescriptions.

Martin- Call me a know-it-all, but I know almost nothing about his candidacy. The Record had him down as opposed to rent control, but also highlighted his opposition to big chain stores in Teaneck. A non-factor in the race.

Arrington- With his tenants' association endorsements and his focus on resolving lawsuits quickly (sounds like more cash settlements), he didn't come across as taxpayer friendly.

Langford- Hard to find too many faults as he only lost by a narrow margin. Enjoys a reputation for fairness, honesty, and community engagement, so he was certainly electable. There are rumblings that his far too diplomatic response to The Record on the key issue of rent control lost him votes. The article gave an impression of a him as an anxious-to-please politician who would rather waffle than take a principled position. Few could believe that a sitting councilman did not know enough about the issue to express a view.

Annillo- Would have expected him to have fared better given the professional experience he brought to the table, the broad support he seemed to enjoy from all quarters, and the abundant signage. He did show himself to be a fighter, and given a little more name recognition and a touch more polish in public speeches, he could be a formidable contender in '08.

Rose- Had a defined platform, had visibility (except for lawn signs, which I didn't see), had qualifications. The message just wasn't right. Voters do not want the Town Council to take up whatever national or international issues the Teaneck Peace & Justice Coalition is agitated about. Council as glorified debating society has been soundly defeated.

Waheed- Mantra was development, but not overdevelopment. Let's see... I'm in favor of development. I'm not in favor of overdevelopment (who is? isn't overdevelopment excessive by definition?). Needed something more than a slick color brochure featuring endorsements from citizens who are not well-known throughout Teaneck and a trivial position on economic development.

Did the "well-financed landlords" win?

The makeup of the new Council suggests that full vacancy decontrol will not become a reality in Teaneck (see below). If the bogeyman that haunted the New Beginnings slate in the final days of the campaign, was, as they alleged, a "well-financed" group representing the landlords, the money may not have been well spent.

Opposed to full vacancy decontrol

• Feit
• Honis
• Kates
• Parker

In favor of full vacancy decontrol

• Gussen
• Rudolph

Recused

• Katz
  

First in the Blogosphere!

Talk about a scoop-

Here are the vote totals from the May 9th Council elections:

Four-year seats

1) E. Katz (pictured) 4,355
2) M.K. Feit 3,009
3) L. Parker 2,811
4) A. Gussen 2,439

The top vote-getter to miss the cut was R. Schwartz with 1,893, L. Hennig was 6th, and D. Crowley was 7th overall.

Two-year seat

E. Rudolph 2,459

2nd was D. Langford, distant 3rd was C. Arrington.

Who shot New Beginnings?

Win or lose, the biggest story of the 2006 Council election season has been the New Beginnings slate. They announced their presence on the scene with a somewhat strange advertisement/press release that The Suburbanite mistook for its own original work and published as a news story. Then they (or rather their vocal campaign director, Dr. Joseph Harris) transformed a sleepy campaign contested by a huge field of relative unknowns into a heated battle by fanning the flames of ethnic and religious tension by circulating an e-mail containing accusations of complicity in bigotry against the four Orthodox Jewish candidates in the field (clearly a tactical mistake in addition to a moral/ethical lapse).* And then, having been forced to wipe the egg off of their collective face in the aftermath of that blunder, they came under attack by a slick direct mail and phone campaign that linked them with the Democratic Party machine and the local unions that endorsed them, and drew the painfully obvious conclusion that New Beginnings might not be the most taxpayer-friendly candidates in the field.

Their paralysis in the face of this well-coordinated (and may I add, quite persuasive) attack did not last for long. Within twenty-four hours after the mailings were delivered, I received a phone call from a local activist offering to answer any questions I may have had in the wake of the "disinformation" campaign that had sullied the New Beginnings name (as if it had been so squeaky clean prior to that). Not too long after that, a recorded phone message came from a tired sounding Dennis Crowley urging me to vote line 7. The speculation offered by the New Beginnings messages was that a "well-financed" landlords' group opposed to the "strong position" New Beginnings had staked out on "affordable housing" was behind the attack ads. However, the three candidates from New Beginnings were not the only ones who had come out in favor of strengthening the Teaneck rent control ordinances (after all, it was Mr. Arrington who had the endorsement of the tenants' associations, and Mr. Howard Rose probably made a bigger issue of vacancy decontrol throughout the campaign). So who was it that spent all that time and money going after New Beginnings?



* Note to future candidates- if you are going to hold yourselves out as champions of diversity who deplore voting along ethnic, racial, and religious (what about gender?) lines, don't claim that you are purposely running as a threesome in order to leave a spot open for an Orthodox Jewish candidate to be elected too. That is offensive to all Teaneck residents, not to mention patronizing to the Orthodox Jewish community.

Election Day

No more automated phone messages, no more silly and convoluted endorsement letters (that means you, Senator Weinberg), no more sensational accusations followed by humbling retractions... After today, visible political activity in Teaneck will cease for a while (although I suspect that the same people whose Christmas decorations are still up in February will still have their campaign signs displayed through Memorial Day). If the pattern holds, the brief bout of enthusiasm for Township affairs will give way to apathy, and the flow of information will slow to a trickle of poorly edited stories in The Suburbanite and the occasional Brian Aberback piece in The Record.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way. The Teaneck Blog is here to keep the fires of civic engagement burning just a little bit longer. Please feel free to help out by sending in news, views, rumors, and the like.