Reader says Knudsen and Sedon would do us all the favor by attending the “Civility Roundtable” in official capacities, thereby triggering the Sunshine Law
At some point these quasi-public meetings move from discussing procedure (i.e., the process by which irreconcilable dissenters are isolated, frozen, and embarrassed, preferably one at a time), to discussing substance (once the meetings have been purged of non-likeminded people, the real agenda can be discussed and moved forward), all without the need to publish an agenda before the meeting or the minutes afterward, UNLESS…both M’s Knudsen and Sedon would do us all the favor of breaking up the party by attending all of these meetings in their official capacities, thereby triggering the Sunshine Law…?
I’m surprised that the Valley sympathizers on our Council haven’t invited Valley’s attorney Jonathan Drill to attend these meetings. They could read back some of the transcripts from those hearings for a real ear-opener. Apparently it’s ok to be uncivil as long as it’s someone arguing in favor of one of your personal causes. Once again we have a case of the rules only applying to others with these people. It’s time to knock off this entire charade and get back to work. You can start by counting the quarters every day.
Never happened. They will not attend because they have been brainwashed by the Three Amigos. Let face it folks The Village of Ridgewood is run by three council people. The other two have been assimilated.
The NJFOG Sunshine Law expert at last week’s LWV presentation said that as long as municipal business isn’t being discussed for official purposes and/or acted on, having more than two members present wouldn’t constitute a violation. They are just citizen-participants in that situation because anyone can attend and there is no particular business at hand. I guess you could try to pursue the idea but it sounded like it wouldn’t get very far. At least that’s how I heard him. All council members were at that presentation so it would be interesting to see if they interpreted it the same way.
These ‘civility roundtables’ are exclusively taking place in the confines of the Village of Ridgewood. Discussions occurring during these ‘civility roundtables’ are clearly directed to the proper manner in which Ridgewood residents who have yet to be intimidated into silence will be allowed to express themselves or otherwise comport themselves at a public microphone during a public meeting when dissenting from the next fruitcake scheme the three amigos cook up. Once the ‘civility roundtable’ meetings have managed to aggressively purge themselves of all political dissenters, or bored them so thoroughly that their political opponents stop attending the meetings to preserve their personal sanity, the meetings will move on to discuss more substantive public issues.
All of this constitutes public business and can be legitimately called out as such, Bernie-esque, so long as three or more members of the Ridgewood Village Council are present and are actively engaged in the meeting.
Just wait until the future public meeting of the VC when a disgruntled Ridgewood resident makes the mistake of violating one or another ‘unofficial’ rule of decorum solemnly laid down by one of these self-appointed local roundtables populated by politically progressive tut-tutting busibodies. Mark my words, that resident will be treated to a harsh and demeaning earful from one of the three amigos disgusted and frustrated at having to deal with yet another untutored rube, unhip to the “new normal”, in accordance with which we are to verbally kiss the tucchus of our elected officials and practically beg forgiveness for failing to appreciate their supernatural degree of wisdom before daring to explain how or why we disagree with them.
The Sunshine Law was put in place for the benefit of the public to foster transparency and thereby stem corruption (sunshine being the ‘best disinfectant’). In accordance with that important purpose, the Sunshine Law is interpreted liberally (i.e., broadly) to effectively foil the plans of politically-aligned colleagues who separately populate a common public board or municipal council to influence or, worse yet, pre-determine the course of public business outside regular, well-publicized and predictable channels.
One well-conceived lawsuit brought under the Sunshine Law would be all it would take to put the fear of G*d into these shysters and effectively neutralize the “normative” power of their innocuous-sounding series of roundtable discussions.