Glen Rock Mayor Comments on Transparency

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Glen Rock NJ, Glen Rock Mayor Bruce Packer , “Over my 3 1/2 years of being mayor, I have made transparency and openness my #1 priority. It was easy because my natural tendency is to be open and share info, even it may be more than people want to hear.
It is for this reason that I was so extremely bothered when, at the last council worksession, a resident stated that I see “transparency as a dirty word.”

While I’m not looking for sympathy, as anyone who chooses to run for office immediately volunteers to be in a line of fire, this has bothered me for two weeks now.
He was referencing the situation at Lower Faber field for which we have shared every bit of info. In fact, the council has not even made a decision and we’ve already had no less than 5 public meetings on the issue regarding every possible direction that the project can take and including stakeholders such as the Rec Advisory Board and the Glen Rock Environmental Commission.
I made the decision to have all of these extra meetings to assure that all potential sides of the issue are being heard.
The council is still gathering data, a fact that has been mentioned at our meetings, and it will be discussed again tonight.
Regarding the gentleman who inferred that there is information that is not being shared, rather than throwing out careless accusations or insulting the mayor and the meeting process that we undertake in our form of government, please share your specific concern instead of just casting shadows.
When I ran for mayor, I never once had a negative thing to say about my predecessor but you seem to be choosing a path where, after knowing me for over a decade, you are going into some kind of ill conceived attack mode.
I will continue to respond to your comments publicly and hope that you will elaborate on them the same way.”