Month: March 2019

Working Productively For A Better Shared Future

Keith Kaplan / / Meetings, Teaneck

This week Council did something new and different.  We had a weekday meeting.
Mayor Hameeduddin suggested that Council meet in open session at 2pm instead of our typical 8pm meeting time.1

Truth be told I was a bit skeptical.  I wasn’t entirely sure that anyone would show up!  We walked into the council chambers to this scene:

A packed house

Literally, every seat was filled.  We had an overflow crowd in the halls.  Residents were speaking at the Good & Welfare portion for well over an hour, telling the council about their concerns and informing us of how they wished us to proceed.

This was democracy in action and the daytime meeting provided a rare opportunity for many who otherwise couldn’t, to come and address council about their concerns.  We will continue holding these types of meetings throughout the year (hopefully supplementing others meetings with additional ways people can address council-members, e.g. video from home).

The importance of having more people be able to contribute

One of the reasons I was so happy this was such a success is because Continue reading “Working Productively For A Better Shared Future”

Historical Perspectives on “New Problems”

Keith Kaplan / / Meetings, Roads, Safety, Teaneck

Since joining the Teaneck Planning Board (about a decade ago), I’ve spent a lot of time researching how we did things, in the past.

I use that information to gain perspective, and guide decisions on what we might wish to do, going forward.  When you know what has been tried (for better or worse), you gain a good perspective.

Issues residents face tend to be cyclical1 and knowing how we handled them in the past, is very informative if you want to avoid prior mistakes2.

With that in mind, I hope to make several posts in the future about issues affecting Teaneck, that we face on Council.

Lighting:

A couple weeks back, a resident asked, via the Facebook group Teaneck Today (click to join)  “has there ever been an audit on the effectiveness of Teaneck’s street lighting? Continue reading “Historical Perspectives on “New Problems””