JACKSON – The decorum – or lack thereof – at a recent Township Council meetings has been the subject of debate between residents and public officials.
Residents recently complained about Council President Jennifer Kuhn’s tone describing her replies to questions and statements as condescending, curt and dismissive.
Township resident Debra Jones pleaded with Kuhn to be more civil and less snarky during a recent meeting. “You just said to one of the residents here that you will do whatever you want. That is not okay. You can’t do whatever you want.”
“You along with everyone else, you represent us. We’re the taxpayers. You are working for us essentially to do what is best for the entire town. You need to remove ‘I’ from the equation. It is not an ‘I’ it is an ‘us,’” Jones added.
“You say it a few times to people when you say, and it is not in a nice calm way, its snarky when you are saying, ‘see you again, bye, have a good night,’” Jones added.
Jones said to Council Vice President Mordechai Burnstein that at a prior meeting when his microphone was on, “after one of the residents came up and asked a question your exact words were, ‘oh that was fun.’ That is disrespectful.”
Kuhn recently called for an audit of key municipal departments such as the police, code enforcement, building department and Department of Public Works. Jones said that this is being done “after a 300% raise for the council. That is outrageous.”
She told Burnstein “your raise is paid for by our taxes. Whether you like what is being said or not, you are held to a different standard than we who are sitting out here and that is because you were voted in. You can’t just treat people like this. It is not right. You might not like it but you have to do right by the people you are working for.”
“If you said to your boss ‘oh that’s fun’ in the manner in which you said it here, I don’t think you’d have a job. It’s not nice. You talk about the need for people to be nice, well, unfortunately, you don’t lead by example,” Jones added.
In a case where a resident spoke inappropriately following the passage of a recent ordinance concerning motorized bicycles a regular speaker expressed that he hoped police officers would be smart enough to know the difference between cases where tickets would be issued to violators of such vehicles and motorized wheel chairs used by people with disabilities.
Councilman Giuseppe Palmeri took offense to the resident’s implication that local police would not distinguish the difference and responded in defense of the officers during that public comment period.
The resident’s reply to Palmeri included an expletive. That resident was not called out of order or removed from speaking, a move that surprised members of the audience.
Some residents have accused Kuhn of cutting into their response time during public comment periods and also being dismissive to them or cutting them off prematurely during an ordinance hearing because questions are limited to the ordinance itself and not general subjects.
She was also criticized for shortening the normal five-minute time limit to three minutes during one meeting where the number of ordinances that appeared on that night’s agenda was higher than usual. Several residents expressed that limiting the time of public comment during that meeting was unnecessary.
During a later council meeting, Kuhn issued a prepared statement on behalf of herself and council that called for better discourse at council meetings.
Jackson resident Ranya AsiMahmoud speaks to members of the Township Council noting she was being interrupted by Council President Jennifer Kuhn during a recent public comment period. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)
“I want to remind everyone of the importance of civility and respect in our discussions. Our meetings serve as a vital forum in the discussions of business for Jackson Township and it is essential that we engage with one another in a manner that is constructive, respectful and focuses on the issues at hand.”
Kuhn provided her interpretation of the Open Public Meetings Act stating meetings were intended to “promote transparency in decision-making by allowing the public to observe and understand how decisions are made.”
“While we welcome and encourage public input and individuals may pose questions during public comment (period) this portion of the meeting is not intended to be a question-and-answer session or a debate,” the council president said. She stressed that residents were strongly encouraged to pose any questions they had through emails and telephone calls.
She warned that “attacks on council and anyone up on the dais is not going to be accepted any longer. You will be called out of order. If you want to make any comments pertaining to the question on hand or pertaining to township business it is welcome but if we are attacked individually, screamed at, yelled at, cursed at – you will be called out of order and we ask you to sit down and if it continues you will be asked to leave.”
The Open Public Records Act allows for those at the microphone to question decisions made by a governing body and to receive answers about how and why such decisions were made.
While OPRA does not address whether public officials should be required to respond to citizens’ questions during public comment periods, it is generally left to the discretion of governing bodies. There is no law that prohibits responding to residents’ questions and most municipal officials do so.
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