Ordinance 22-2022 was largely designed to allow Deputy Mayor Schwartz to recuse himself in the face of conflict-of-interest issues that had been raised by the Good Neighbors of Teaneck in the complaint they had filed in Superior Court. Councilwoman Orgen previously recused herself, leaving only five members eligible to vote.

The Township Attorney and Clerk indicated that a protest filed by neighbors of the hospital had been reviewed and accepted. Therefore, in this matter the law required that all five members still eligible to vote would have to vote Yes for this ordinance to pass.

For nearly 90 minutes, speakers in person and on Zoom spoke to the Ordinance 22-2022. Those in favor focused on the need to allow the hospital to expand and serve the community, while most of those opposed indicated that they fully supported the hospital’s expansion plans but emphasized that the promised long-term deed restrictions that would protect the nearby homes from being impacted by future hospital plans had never been implemented.

The mayor opened the meeting up to comments from councilmembers. Councilmember Kaplan spoke first and stated that “there’s no question that the hospital needs to be expanded” and that as a result of negotiations both sides would end up at “the same amount of miserable”.

Councilmember Romney Rice emphasized that the two sides had been close to a mutually agreeable deal and that she was going to abstain so that the negotiations could continue until an agreement was reached.

Councilmember Pagan said he would support the ordinance.

Deputy Mayor Katz opined that the neighbors were working against the hospital and that he would vote in favor of the ordinance as it would be good for all of Teaneck, after which he walked over to talk with Councilmember Romney Rice.

Mayor Dunleavy felt that a decision had to be made after two years of negotiations. He noted that Bergen County had the greatest excess of hospital beds of any county in the state and that only the biggest hospitals would survive the upcoming wave of consolidation and be able to deal successfully with health insurers, so he would vote yes.

With four members planning to vote yes and one to abstain, it appeared that Ordinance 22-2022 would fail. The mayor made a motion to pass the ordinances, at which point Deputy Mayor Katz leaned over and asked the mayor to call for a five-minute recess.

Four members of council – Dunleavy, Katz, Pagan and Romney Rice – left the dais and began discussions in the backrooms adjoining the council chambers. Individuals in attendance at the meeting described how Township Attorney John Shahdanian rushed through the lobby to start a conversation with Deputy Mayor Schwartz in the finance office, while a web of conversations took place in the entranceway to the building’s back door between members of the council and the attorney and senior staff representing Holy Name.

After nearly 15 minutes of discussions behind the scenes, the meeting was reconvened. Mayor Dunleavy began immediately by stating that, before voting started, he was going to ask the two sides to make a strong commitment that they would work together to address some of the outstanding issues.

Wendy Berger, the attorney representing the hospital who had been deeply involved in the discussions during the recess, said that she would make a commitment to continue discussions. Rob Simon, the attorney representing the Good Neighbors of Teaneck who had not been involved in any of the sidebar negotiations, asked what would happen with the vote. After being told by the mayor that no answer would be given about the status of the ordinance, he said that he would give his 110% commitment to continue negotiations.

Noting that there was a commitment from both the hospital and the neighbors to continue discussions, the vote was called and all five members voted yes. Ordinance 22-2022 was passed.

It’s impossible to know what was said that changed the one vote that mattered. Two critical questions need to be answered:

1.   What happened during that 15-minute recess?
2.   Was that 15-minute recess even legal?

Once the meeting reconvened there was no discussion among members as to what should be done. Instead, the mayor immediately announced to both sides the terms of a deal that appeared to have been reached behind closed doors. A deal in which Holy Name and its representatives had taken part, but from which the Good Neighbors of Teaneck were excluded and thus unaware of the discussions that had taken place.

The backroom discussions and the deal that appears to have been reached, seem to violate the very essence of the legislative findings and declaration of the Open Public Meetings Act (NJSA 10:4-7), which states that:

“The Legislature finds and declares that the right of the public to be present at all meetings of public bodies, and to witness in full detail all phases of the deliberation, policy formulation, and decision making of public bodies, is vital to the enhancement and proper functioning of the democratic process; that secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public in government and the public’s effectiveness in fulfilling its role in a democratic society…”

Even under the best possible light, the passage of this ordinance does not fix all of the issues that are needed for the hospital to expand. The complaint from the Good Neighbors of Teaneck documents further conflicts of interest, especially by Deputy Mayor Katz. Furthermore, the recusal of Deputy Mayor Schwartz from the vote on the ordinances on June 28th does not address his involvement in the negotiations with Holy Name and his active participation in the Planning Board discussions of a Master Plan amendment that set the stage for the passage of the zoning ordinance.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the Class II member of the Planning Board, serving currently an an officer in the Teaneck Police Department who also works as a real estate agent, was given the opportunity to place a bid on a property on behalf of the hospital at 115 Chadwick Road and then subsequently voted on behalf of the Master plan amendment.

The apparent violations of the Open Public Meetings Act only make matters worse.

The case is likely to drag on in Superior Court, either because the complaint will be amended to add the violations that took place on Tuesday night or because the neighbors could file a complaint under the Open Public Meetings Act, under which the approval of Ordinance 22-2022 would be nullified, if the case were successful.

The oral promise by the hospital to continue negotiations appears not to be worth much, especially given that the hospital has pretty much been given everything it ever hoped for.

The deal that Councilmember Romney Rice said seemed right at hand between the hospital and the neighbors could still be reached, but it appears that the two sides will only negotiate in good faith once a court decides that they need to go back to square one and a new negotiator take over to see that both sides act in the best interests of all involved.