The Teaneck 6

There is more than enough blame to go around for the controversy and ill-feeling 
surrounding an incident in which six students from Thomas Jefferson Middle
School were briefly detained and ticketed for walking in the street after dismissal. 
After reading the Suburbanite's front page account of the hubbub, I am left 
wondering which of the aggrieved parties will show the character and maturity to 
apologize and admit their role in the escalation.

The Teaneck Police Department is one candidate. While law enforcement
officials can legitimately claim that officers were just doing their
jobs when they slapped fines on a group of young violators and returned
them to school, a department that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on
community policing and efforts to improve its relations with residents should
know better than to frighten, intimidate, and humiliate our children in
the process of carrying out its duty to keep order and protect public
safety. How about an admission from the TPD that this could have been
handled better and that in the future, officers will use better judgment
when making an example of people, even if those people had been
previously warned to obey the law?

Another group who may want to step back from the brink is the parents
of the children who were ticketed. Sure, any parent in the same position
would loudly protest the way in which this situation was (mis)handled
and the way their child was treated. However, it seems clear that
administration of the middle school cooperated with the police and issued numerous
instructions and warnings to the students not to engage in the very behavior
their children allegedly engaged in.

"[TJ Principal Antoine Green] said he told the students, but kids will
be kids. If he had informed us that the police would be issuing
summonses, we would have instructed our children not to walk in the street,"
one parent said, according to the Suburbanite. One may express anger at
how certain parties may have acted, but excusing the children's failure
to heed warnings or obey the school principal on the grounds that the
parents were not aware of the punishment and therefore did not
explicitly tell their children to follow this specific rule suggests that the
parents may not be blameless here.

Finally, a couple of other individuals ought to retract statements made in the heat 
of the moment. One prominent resident is quoted as threatening the Township with
"the biggest demonstration you ever had in Teaneck" in response to the incident.
Given past history, that is quite a loaded comment. And though it is possible that
he is being quoted somewhat out of context, new Board of Education President Dr.
Henry Pruitt should know better than to take sides here. Snidely commenting that
"if the police want to empty their ticket books, they should spend their time on Cedar
Lane," is neither helpful nor a good example for the youth in the school system, who
should not see the elected leader of the school system expressing disdain for the
police in public.

Let's not forget that this incident began with children and our children are
watching how those they look up to go about responding to it.

Power to the people

The Township Council may be on the verge of taking a wise political step through the adoption of a new zoning ordinance for Teaneck Road, but can it live with the consequences? As today's Record notes, the proposed guidelines, drafted in concert with residents' groups, enjoy popular support, but they are also at odds with the Master Plan. Given the backdrop, political expediency may outweigh other concerns, but there is no question that a precedent is being set here, and it might be one that certain Council members will find burdensome in the future.

Of course, the recently adopted Master Plan itself is far from the ambitious document originally envisioned by members of the Council Majority and their allies on the Planning Board. Public protest in the form of demands for community input into the process compelled officials to scale back some of their favored proposals and incorporate language binding them to protect the character of residential communities. So, in effect, the groundwork for more restrictive zoning ordinances that emanate not from municipal government, but from neighborhood residents themselves, was laid months ago.

But the compromises that ended the standoff over the Master Plan could be viewed as part of a government-led process that reserved the right to make planning decisions from elected officials and their appointees. This more recent episode clearly cedes that power to a vocal group of involved residents who hold no position and are not accountable to anyone but themselves. Other community members will certainly demand the very same consideration in their own backyards. Time will tell whether that will be a good thing.

Seizing the center

While dueling letter writers quibble over who came out looking worse during Teaneck's summer of discontent, one individual at the center of much of the swirling controversy is quietly padding his credentials and look toward the future. While political enemies continue their attempts discredit Mayor Katz and his Council allies, the Mayor himself has begun using the media more effectively to position himself as a moderate leader and dedicated public servant. This constitutes quite an improvement from earlier efforts and may serve to reposition him as a formidable figure in Township politics just in time for the next round of Council elections.

In Sunday's Record, Katz made all the right moves in commenting on an issue of importance to him. For years, Katz has been a promoter of additional parking in some form or another, especially in the Plaza area, though his proposals and the Council's RFPs have been met with limited enthusiasm. Katz wisely took advantage of the opportunity to balance his views with a declaration of the importance of protecting residential areas. Similarly, in local coverage of recent meetings on the future of North Teaneck Rd., Katz managed to come off a sensible and concerned participant in the deliberations who was willing to advocate for the residents. And to cap it off, the latest edition of the County Seat contains a photo that will do more for Katz's political fortunes than the infamous pastrami shot, as he is shown at a lunch with Hackensack officials to discuss a shared services arrangement.

There was little doubt that after a strong performance in the 2006 elections, Katz had lost a bit of his luster once installed as mayor. Around the time of the controversy over the parking lot in Brett Park, it became clear that Katz's widespread popularity and carefully cultivated image as champion of all of Teaneck was somewhat imperiled by his method of governing. To his credit, he seems to have learned from his mistakes and it appears that his opponents' continued petulance and negativity has allowed him the opportunity to move back to the center and regain his place as a pragmatic and likable leader. He may emerge from all the political sniping as a stronger and more mature public figure.