In the 2024 General Election Teaneck voters chose the three incumbent candidates for the 3 open seats on Teaneck’s 7-member Council. Inherently that meant that the Council that will govern from January 2025 to December 2026 will be IDENTICAL to the current (2023-2024) Council. Two weeks after that election, Teaneck Voices editors authored an article that reviews the processes and some results of the  mayoralty choices Council has made when choosing its leadership.   What follows is a reprint of that November 18 article.

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Who Will Be Teaneck’s Mayor Come January 2, 2025?

Teaneck has a mayor.

The Council elects Teaneck’s mayor by a majority vote (“Yea” by at least 4 of the 7 councilmembers – and can include 1 vote for her/himself).

What power/authority does the Teaneck mayor have? The Teaneck mayor presides over council meetings. Other than that activity, the mayor plays the same role and has the same authority as the 6 other council members. The mayor is 1 of 7 votes – They have no tie-breaking power, no veto power, no hiring or firing power.

How does the public view our mayor? Teaneck’s mayor is viewed and treated the same as any mayor in the United States who is elected by the majority of the people in each constituency; to the world, the Teaneck mayor is the equivalent of the mayors of New York City, Newark, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

• Two Teaneck Mayors, Mohammed Hameeduddin and Michael Pagan were invited and went on U.S. Mayors Missions to Israel.
• Two Teaneck Mayors, Mohammed Hameeduddin and Lizette Parker were invited with the nation’s mayors to The White House.

So becoming Teaneck’s mayor is a big deal!
Question: How does the Council decide which of the 7 should hold the title?  

Answer:  Six to seven weeks (between the election and the Reorg Meeting) of wheeling and dealing.

A Bit of History

Teaneck’s government is the Council-Manager form of government, one of 4 types of government declared under New Jersey’s Faulkner Act of 1950. Under the Council-Manager form a government, a municipality 1) has a council of 5, 7, or 9 members, each serving 4 year terms, 2) elects a “weak” mayor either by popular vote or vote of the council, and has a professional manager, the town’s “CEO” who is hired by and serves at the will of the Council.

Through 1961, Teaneck’s Council was composed of 5 members. In 1962, the Council grew to 7 members, at which it presently stands. Until 1988, all members of the Council were elected at the same time every 4 years. The general rule of thumb was that the highest vote getter was elected mayor by their colleagues. There were a few instances where the highest vote getter deferred to another councilmember. But there was a general “rule” that reflected the will of the voters.

In 1988, while the form of Teaneck’s government remained the same, the election process was changed by referendum. The new process established staggered council elections every two years alternating between electing 3 members and 4 members. Obviously the mayor could no longer be the highest vote getter, since the highest voter getter in one election was not a candidate in the subsequent election.

The voting process for mayor at the Reorg meeting is by secret ballot. Each councilmember writes their choice on a small piece of paper, folds it up, and gives it to the Municipal Clerk who reads each vote aloud. The voting continues until one councilmember receives 4 or more votes. In reality, it could be a long night until 4 councilmembers name the same person!

So, what to do?

With a complete lack of transparency, councilmembers start to lobby for themselves or form alliances with like-minded colleagues to name “one of their own.” The lobbying process includes the extraction of promises to vote for a particular councilmember. Often the lobbying itself is shaped by reward or punishment for past voting behavior or behavior as a candidate during the campaign season. BUT, those strategies depend on everyone “keeping their promises.”

Two examples of the Teaneck mayoral process:

• As most of our readers will remember, in 2022 the expectation was that Councilmember Mark Schwartz had secured the promised votes to be elected mayor. When the votes were counted Councilmember Michael Pagan garnered the requisite 4 votes. Feelings of betrayal vied with congratulations.
• In 2010, a 4-candidate year, everyone knew that a new mayor would have to be chosen: Mayor from 2008-2010 Kevie Feit had not put his hat into the ring for another council term. The incumbents were (alphabetically) Adam Gussen, Elie Katz, Lizette Parker, and Yitz Stern. Gussen, Katz, and Stern ran together and put pressure on Parker to join them. She resisted and ran independently.

The four incumbents won re-election, with Lizette Parker receiving the greatest number of votes. Mayoral choice seemed to be a no-brainer. Parker seemed a shoo-in for mayor. But her three incumbent colleagues, apparently angry at her independence, lobbied the one other male colleague on Council, Mohammed Hameeddudin, to accept their votes and vote for himself for mayor. The repercussions washed over the town leaving scars that are still felt today.

Why are we retelling this history?

Because it is very likely that the same wheeling and dealing, the negotiations, the tit for tat, are going on right now. The three incumbents were re-elected, so the new Council is the old Council with all the alliances and dissonances of the last two years at play.

What will the impact be on the already fractured town of Teaneck?

Maybe it’s time for the voters to elect the mayor.