Mahwah Council is under Civil Rights investigations by the NJ Attorney General’s Office

KeithAntisemitism, Mahwah, Ordinances2 Comments

As was reported Wednesday by the Bergen Record’s Tom Nobile, “the State Attorney General’s Office is investigating how the township came to adopt a controversial parks ban, which local law enforcement has said could violate parkgoers’ constitutional rights.”

I have obtained a copy of the subpoena issued by the State Attorney General posted it below.

These are very serious allegations, which echo the allegations made by the Township’s decades long Chief of Police and the Bergen County Prosecutor.

At this point, every level of law enforcement has looked at this issue and determined serious enforcement problems exist. Read More “Mahwah Council is under Civil Rights investigations by the NJ Attorney General’s Office”

Short Take: Is Mahwah Team Evil or Team Stupid? (UPDATE)

KeithAntisemitism, Mahwah, Ordinances0 Comment

This Thursday, the Mahwah Township Council will have a meeting to discuss various items on the Agenda.

Among them will be:

UPDATE (9/27/17):

Someone had enough brain power to determine that the allusions to (a certain group that used arm bands to denote acceptable members of society who should have access to places like parks) was inevitable and has changed the discussion about mandatory “Arm Bands” into “Wrist Bands”.

This, as they say, changes everything!

 

  1. A Discussion about Township Parks including the issuance of Badges and Arm Bands
  2. Peddling and Solicitation Ordinance
    – to prevent Jews with suitcases of cash from trying to buy homes, despite the fact this isn’t a real thing.
  3. Unlawful Use in Parks Ordinance
    – including such gems as “no stringing utilities over parks” and “no aiding and abbetting ball playing”.  I wonder which will have a zero tolerance policy?

So, after the acknowledgment from the Council President that the Township is “under the microscope” from the State Attorney General and that Civil Rights subpoenas have been issued, the first and best course of action they can come up with is to issue mandatory “arm bands” for the people using parks in order to keep out (((undesirables))).

Are you Team Evil or Team Stupid, Mahwah?

Tune in Thursday, to find out.

 

When Teaneck met Lord Chesterton (on reducing bureaucracy)

KeithBureaucracy, Ordinances, Teaneck0 Comment

For several years I’ve been working at revising certain sections of our Township code. One of the sections I’ve focused on, concerns our sign ordinance and specifically, “uniformity”.

Teaneck’s Code Sec. 33-18(c)(5)(e)(6) reads:
Uniformity. Business signs for each occupant in a building with multiple occupancies shall be uniform and compatible in height, placement and design and to the extent possible color and letter font type.

In the back of my mind whenever I ask to remove or alter a statute or ordinance that we have on the books is the parable of Chesterton’s Fence1.  The ordinance was created for a reason, after all.  And unless one understands the history and background, removing it may make you understand that the alternative to bad can sometimes be worse.  This wasn’t something taken lightly. Read More “When Teaneck met Lord Chesterton (on reducing bureaucracy)”

Pulling back the curtain on Mahwah’s (en)forced errors.

KeithAntisemitism, Eruv, Mahwah4 Comments
  • In a Facebook post Thursday, Mahwah’s Council President indicated that Chief of Police James Batelli, had issues with ordinances ( e.g. 1806 to ban all non-residents certain people, from parks and others, pulled from the agenda) but now feels confident they will be ready for the next meeting.

Sadly, he doesn’t mention what the Chief’s concerns were. Several residents at previous council meetings were asking about the reasons ordinances seem not to be enforced and Council members haven’t seen fit to publicize this information to the residents of Mahwah.

An Open Public Records Act request procured the following information Read More “Pulling back the curtain on Mahwah’s (en)forced errors.”

Bad Faith in Mahwah

KeithAntisemitism, Eruv, Mahwah0 Comment

Tensions are running high in Mahwah and a meeting was scheduled to foster open dialogue and negotiation on August 15th, between the Eruv Association, the Mayor, members of the Town Council and Mahwah Strong (a resident group).

Two choices were presented.
Decision by the Town Council of Mahwah to issue summonses or hold off pending meeting

If you are going with option 1, you are Robert Hermansen and the Town Council in Mahwah, NJ.

You can listen to the vote to issue the summonses here: Read More “Bad Faith in Mahwah”

Robert Hermansen and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Censorship

KeithEruv, Mahwah0 Comment

This post is a bit more personal than the others I’ve written, about the situation going on in Mahwah, NJ.

You can find my previous posts here and here.

In this post, I’d like to talk about the civic violations taking place in Bergen County, where I live.  How my rights and the rights of others have been and continue to be violated, and exactly what that means for society when these types of infringements go unchecked.

On July 27, the Town Council in Mahwah held a hearing (the video for a portion of the meeting can be found here and here) in which the public portion of the meeting, which by statute is  “for public comment on any governmental… issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the municipality” was censored for several speakers.  Nylema Nabbie, Mahwah’s attorney from the law firm of Gittleman, Muhlstock & Chewcaske, LLP stated:

“I do not want a situation where I sit here and I allow comments to come in to create a record that can then be used against this body in a subsequent litigation. That is the purpose of restricting comments.”

With that, she cut off comments that were disapproved of by the governing body and wouldn’t allow people to voice comments on several governmental issues that they felt may be of concern to residents of the municipality.  If she felt it may lead to litigation or problematic outcomes, it was verboten. Read More “Robert Hermansen and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Censorship”