An important change needs to be made in Ridgewood

Dear Mayor Knudsen, Deputy Mayor Sedon, Councilman Hache, and Councilwoman Walsh:

I was recently shown copies of email messages between Councilman Jeffrey Voigt and Alfred Doblin, editorial page editor of The Record, obtained from the Village by a fellow resident via the Open Public Records Act. I will not quote them here because I believe that you have all seen them.

Background: earlier this month I read an editorial by Mr. Doblin in which he urged Ridgewood’s Village Council to permit a rainbow flag to be flown on municipal property. I was disturbed by several aspects of the editorial and sent Mr. Doblin an email message providing my phone number and asking if we might talk about it. He called me and we spoke. At the end of our conversation, he invited me to write a letter to the editor repeating my views and said he would make sure it was published. Although I was very busy preparing for a trip, I took the time to write the letter, which after some editing by him was published the next day. At that time I had not yet read Councilman Voigt’s op-ed piece on the subject; I learned of its existence later. They were posted separately at northjersey.com but ran on the same page of the “hard copy” of the paper on May 10.

Contrary to Councilman Voigt’s suggestion via email to that very editor, Mayor Knudsen neither wrote the letter for me nor helped me to write it. This claim was uncalled-for, inaccurate, and insulting. I can still hardly believe the councilman thought it, much less expressed it.

The problem for the village and residents goes beyond defamation. At more than one council meeting, Councilman Voigt has displayed disruptive, distracting, erratic, and frankly infantile behavior on the dais. His facial expressions and body language have indicated extreme irritation with what was being said or voted upon. He has repeatedly refused to be silent when a point of order has been called. He has stood up and approached and loudly cursed at our Village Manager in the full view and hearing of all. i have often asked myself whether I was sitting in a municipal courtroom or the gym in a junior high. He has shown contempt for his fellow council members and the public, going so far as to sneer openly at the mayor while she was speaking and to name in a negative way residents who routinely make the effort to observe our elected officials, as numerous council members over the years have repeatedly implored residents to do. If only more residents had the time and interest to do the same! As thanks for our ongoing concern about municipal issues and sincere contributions toward enhancing our village’s quality of life, we became the victims of a councilman’s diatribes. Is it appropriate for us to be named on the public record in such a manner? I thought we deserved a medal, not a punch in the face.

Flailing even farther into cyberspace, Councilman Voigt has now posted on his Facebook page (www.facebook.com/jeffrey.voigt.3) the OPRA requests by four village residents for email messages that he had sent through the village server. These requests are posted without redaction, thus openly revealing those residents’ names, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and email addresses. Does our village attorney not find this questionable?

Precisely what Councilman Voigt has against the mayor, whom in his litany of email calumnies he ironically called “mean spirited,” is a mystery to me. Whatever his issues may be, surely elected officials need to check their fury at the door and to learn how to disagree courteously and rationally without sniping at each other in emails to the local press. If our deeply embattled federal Congress can get through the day without wringing each others’ necks, can’t the Ridgewood Village Council do the same? Yet as an observer of many council meetings, either in person or online, I have never seen the mayor respond to the councilman’s outbursts other than with a calm, quiet, professional demeanor.

At a recent council meeting, Councilman Voigt exhibited dismay upon discovering, as he should have known was legal under state law, that some of his email messages had been obtained via OPRA requests. Yet he dismissed the derogatory and disrespectful statements that he had made in those messages. In journalism, this is called “burying the lede.” Moreover, these disparaging observations were made not to just anyone, but to the editorial page editor of the major newspaper in the county, published by the same publisher as our town paper. As a professional journalist exercising her right of free speech at the suggestion of that editor, I was appalled to read the councilman’s comments about me, disparaging on their face and therefore mortifying, but on a professional note as well. Suppose I wanted to approach that editor or a colleague of his for a job–or even to submit another letter? I have now been characterized by a sitting council member as “the mayor’s attack dog.” There goes my credibility as a disinterested observer!

Interestingly, one point to which Councilman Voigt strongly objected was my statement in the letter, picked up by The Record as its headline, that I believed the council had always intended to do the right thing. How could I know that?, he demanded. But wait—my letter was supportive of the entire council, including him. A major reason I had contacted Mr. Doblin in the first place and then written the letter at his suggestion was to support our council, whom I felt Mr. Doblin’s editorial had unfairly maligned. Was it wrong to state that I believed in my village council’s goodwill? What’s the problem here?

Further evidence of poor judgment at best and malfeasance at worst is that Councilman Voigt chose as his mechanism for defaming me and others a public server supported by our tax dollars. To read these words written by a sitting council member for whose election we had spent considerable time volunteering last year, including through the Preserve Graydon Coalition’s email list, was particularly disheartening. I am perplexed and disappointed that he felt compelled to state these things and find it unforgivable that he felt free to dismiss my views in writing and to compromise my credibility—to a fellow journalist, no less.

Councilman Voigt’s communications also cast false and inexplicable aspersions on the character of our mayor. Perhaps there is some incomprehensible vendetta, but if so, it would be more appropriately handled privately rather than before the cameras and the public eye. The councilman continues to embarrass himself and to make a spectacle of himself. One is forced to infer that he may be unable to control his behavior. That is a serious problem for an elected official.

These events, some of which have been widely circulated on social media and elsewhere and are likely to continue to be, have created a serious trust issue for our village. This town has witnessed more than its share of sniping, anger, and infighting on the dais. We were relieved to have put it behind us with the last council election, but “it’s baaack” with (literally) a vengeance. The situation must not be permitted to continue or intensify for the three years, one month, and six days (but who’s counting?) remaining in Councilman Voigt’s four-year term lest we descend into irredeemable vituperation and chaos.

Have you, our elected council members, conferred with our village attorney to learn what formal reprimands or sanctions might be leveled against Councilman Voigt by village ordinance, by the Faulkner form of government, by Robert’s Rules of Order, by legal precedent, by ethical codes in general, or by other precepts and means? Can four members of a five-member village council request or demand the resignation of the fifth? If so, please consider taking that course to restore decorum and public trust in our council chamber.

An apology would not “cut it,” considering that a previous apology for discourteous behavior during council meetings has been followed by even more histrionic performances. Councilman Voigt’s swift replacement would be ideal. If that is not possible, a strong public reprimand by the village attorney to calm the populace and mandated psychological counseling and perhaps medication to calm the councilman are warranted.

Sincerely,

Marcia Ringel

Ridgewood resident since 1971