on town website to be included in our map we also we will put out on the we will put on the website Friday evening and the rain dates will be the following weekend um also want to congratulate and I apologize if I'm going to get his name wrong would you be able to pronounce his name for me same um and I watched part
of the game Sim Adolf from the Tene High Windman Baseball who pitched their first no hitter in Tene since 2013 so congratulations to both him and the Tene High School on that baseball feat um the council met in close session to discuss the following a potent potential
sale of township property personnel contracts board training drones legal issues or opinions regarding any open items on the open session agenda litigation updates and Oprah and um I'd like to have a moment of silence for the
Pope Francis who passed away yesterday morning and my condolences to all those um who uh all those Catholics who on his passing uh Mr clerk would you like to start i have a Oh communicate communication okay we're going to go back to a
miscellaneous okay um anyone on miscellaneous anybody for old business anybody for new business counciloman Goldberg communications yeah is my mic on yep okay sorry um so we all got this
email uh this morning and I just wanted to uh read it for the public um good morning everyone on the morning of April 22nd at exactly 7:30 a.m I was awakened along with half the block by an extremely loud and unexpected alarm clock outside but this wasn't your
typical alarm this was one yellow came with orange cones and had a big moving arm that made enough noise to startle even the trees in the parked cars to be clear this isn't a fictional story it was the tree cutting team on Bogurt Street and Queen Anne Road near Vote Park of the street addresses 175 173 and
166 on Bogurt working hard no doubt for an important cause trimming trees around PSEG power lines while I fully understand and appreciate the necessity of this work it would have been a huge help and a great public courty courtesy to have some kind of warning a simple sign on a tree or cone the day or night
before it would have gone a long way to notify residents of the upcoming disruption so here's my honest respectful request for future tree maintenance or similar work that involves early morning noise please consider placing advanced notice for residents it doesn't take much and it shows consideration for the community especially when it's happening in
residential areas that are unusually quiet at that hour thank you for reading and I hope this small but meaningful suggestion can on Bogurt Street but throughout our town besides that wishing everyone peace and a happy upcoming spring and holiday season uh live life well best regards Raymond so I spoke to
the resident what this resident described is not an isolated incident it's exactly the disruption that the noise ordinance that I drafted and tried to introduce uh was meant to prevent early morning noise in a residential neighborhood with no notice is not just inconsiderate it's avoidable and right
now Tene is one of the earliest allowable start times in Bergen County the ordinance was circulated to the full council and administration on March 30th 9 days before the April 8th meeting it was reviewed by legal council confirmed to be sound and based on effective ordinances already in place with other
towns and I was asked to table the ordinance so it wouldn't take away from the protest ordinance but I refused residents rights to peace and quiet in their home is not political competition good governance requires us to evaluate policy on its merits not on who else has
something on the agenda and that's what our residents expect and deserve instead they're asking why they're woken up at 7:30 in the morning without warning and they're right to ask that question the solution was right in front of us but four people on this day chose not to use it i brought this forward because we need clear standards and basic
protections and I stand by that and I will keep working until it gets done and I urge this council to reconsider and reintroduce the common sense noise ordinance at the next meeting this is about respect and right now our residents are not getting it thank you Council Gilbert um Mr manager were we able to address that today you don't
mind um yes I was able to reach out to um PS our PSEG rep the actual tree trimming was scheduled by PSEG it was a little bit earlier they have since addressed it and they will start at the 8 a.m hour moving forward excellent okay uh anyone else on
communications committee reports by council leazison anybody reports coming up reports okay um going into council listed items potential township land sale mayor Schwarz and not deputy mayor organ that was my apology she actually
has no idea what this is about um it start in two 20 approximately 2015 we offered a quite quite a bit of properties for sale one or two takers um over the last two three years as u we know on council various neighbors have reached out to us can I buy this piece can I buy that piece so what I'm looking
for is four nodding heads that if we can work with the assessor's office ahead of next year's budget so we can use this money to I put it together a list of properties we have and do another round of offerings potentially raise a million or so dollars more importantly offer some land to neighbors that live next
door or any one else that wants to develop on some of the more larger lots um so with that I look for for naughty hints to turn this over to the clerk and the mayor question so the properties that you listed that were on the 2015 resolution are not the actual that's sample that was a sample only list
because as you know some of those are already restricted yes north for example North Continental Park do I have four nodding heads question can we take a real vote can I have a question uh basically I wanted to know that we're giving the Hold on one sec
this Yeah something's off it's not just I think it's checking check one two check one two i didn't unplug anything check one two check one two someone get unplugged underneath here everyone can hear yeah
everyone can hear online okay so everyone hears good yeah I just speak up yeah when we get the complaints just text must see TV okay sorry mayor you have Okay I'll use my outside okay yeah
i just wanted to ask in terms of the criteria uh Mr mayor in terms of um neighbors that uh live close and uh near next door to these properties uh what uh basic criteria are we using there's actually I believe there's a law about that scott if you could um and it's I
believe it's not open to criteria being if there is is a property available there's certain rules that allow us to do a neighborhood uh bid or an open public bid can you draw explain the state law on that sure so there are lots of different uh ways to sell off property it uh depends on the
characteristics of the property itself uh if a property is not large enough for a development uh on the property itself you let's say you can't build a house there and and comply with all the setbacks therefore not large enough uh uh to to to comply then you can send out
a letter to all the neighboring properties and conduct a private auction among those those neighboring properties if the property is too large or is large large enough that you could uh actually develop on the property then essentially we would need to go to a a public auction uh for that and so it would be
you know just like any it be like any any auction but um and we can do it for one or many multiple properties okay and that I understand that's state regulation but uh as a municipality can we add to that subtract from that change anything about that
um we could there's really not much I'll say there's really not much we can restrict it to uh like for example we can't say only these you know these types of buy potential buyers can can bid on the property we can set s some sort of uh
requirements like a bid minimum that's something that we can that we could do so you know here's what we're going to start the auction at we're not going to sell for less than that you know if someone bid bids lower than that that we could do restrictions like that but we can't do a restriction as to like I know who would buy or I'm not if that's I'm
not sure if that's what you're asking here like we also I'm sorry one other thing we also can't restrict them for like what we we can't restrict them as to what they would build there as long as what they're going to build is for a lawful purpose i have two questions sorry for Scott
yeah um I'm okay with the your with your proposal my only comment really is just for the public um to to just say before we put out the list we're going to review it to see you know some of this some of this uh property we have for open space some of it's for potential
future use etc so I just want to make sure that that that the public doesn't get the idea that we're haphazardly just selling everything that we have yeah my intentions are just to turn the vote is to turn this over to the assessor to develop a list a list and then we review review absolutely absolutely no other action on our case i fully get it yeah
in theory I'm okay with this but procedurally do the neighbors of those properties that are going to be sold get first dibs or first attempt to bid if for if it's a property that's large enough that there could be development on they do not but if they if it is one that's small enough like we you know we
sell little slivers of land that nothing can happen they're the only ones who get dibs and dibs on that okay thank you um two questions one so this goes by the procedures for surplus property is that basically what you're saying that's correct yes um I sent this to you
earlier so in 2015 the council passed a resolution based on the 20 these this specific list and there was language about restrictions on what could and could be built there and and all this stuff and actually never I'm assuming
part of that is why it never got built and and there was also I guess that now the land is protected but there was also pieces of it that had um environmental restrictions on it so can you just review the old ordinance to make sure that if we're doing this we're not bumping into the same problems that we
had so it was um I don't know what resolution it is i sent it it was June 9th 2015 so ahead ahead of whenever we do create an ordinance or resolution let's take a look at that so with that I'll call for a roll call just to have the assessor clerk and manager work on just creating a list for council to
review first no other action steps requested at this time mr clerk yes to move forward on the list we have Councilwoman Goldberg yes counciloman Pagan yes councilwoman G yes councilman Katz yes deputy Mayor
Belair yes deputy Mayor yes mayor Schwarz yes and thank you Township Manager Report thank you Mayor and good evening council and township residents please be advised that our community cleanup day is
scheduled for this Saturday April 27th from 12 to 2 p.m starting at starting at the Rotus Center signup information has been posted and the environmental commission will also be handing out the compost buckets to our first 75 residents that have signed up for the pilot program our pedestrian safety
kickoff event is scheduled for tomorrow April 23rd at 1 p.m at Chestnut Plaza on Cedar Lane this campaign will focus on improvements we are committed to make on Cedar Lane for pedestrian safety all are welcome to attend sagamore Park Detention Tank
Community Meeting is set for May 12th from 7 to 9:00 p.m in council chambers it will it will also be available on Zoom for viewing participation will be in person only holy Name Medical Center has their mobile education lab that will be in the
township municipal lot this Friday from 11:30 a.m to 1 p.m stop by to receive a file of life card and magnet for your vital personal medical information no registration is required our townwide garage sale is scheduled for this upcoming weekend
April 26th and 27th the rain date will be the following weekend sign up by Friday April 25th to be included in our map please refer to our website for additional details barren Terrace is going to have an expected water mane installation
which is planned for around May 5th this will be a viol project that will take about 3 weeks we will have traffic control um offer continued updates v uh via NIXL our Memorial Day ceremony is scheduled for May 26th at 11:00 a.m on the
municipal green the Motor Vehicle Commission mobile unit will be on site at Township Hall on August 18th online appointments will be available 30 days prior to resident signup registration for the Tina Community Pool is now available at the ROA Center as of April 17th we processed
126 pool memberships and that has been growing since please refer to our online flyers with additional information and our fee schedule in addition we have an openhouse ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for May 21st from 6:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m at the new pool location on Commander
Walk the Tene Farmers Market will begin on May 8th and will take place on Thursdays through October at the Garrison and Beverly lot never alone Resource Center will have a donation bin at Township Hall accepting non-p perishable foods from April 15th to May
15th our next shredding event is scheduled for June 6th from 9:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m in the Township Hall parking lot some project updates I have for you tonight heric Park improvements continue the playground safety installation um is
scheduled for next week bike lane improvements we did award the contract last meeting to DNL and we have a precon meeting scheduled for next week the Argon Park tennis courts the contract was awarded last meeting to Dakota Excavating Contractor and a pre construction meeting is also scheduled
for next week phelps Park tennis courts are still o are still undergoing some temporary repairs for this spring and summer we are expected to reopen miday and the Andreas Park pickle ball ball courts the surface painting and
striping is scheduled and the project will be completed miday um the Bell A drainage project design work is complete and is being sent to the D and EPA sagamore Park improvements we are in the preliminary design and it is still
in progress maple Avenue improvements design is completed and we are awaiting funding and county review of plans friendly reminder to please sign up for our township alerts on the front page of our website and I'd also like to take a moment and wish our township clerk Doug
Rousion a happy birthday thank you mayor that's all I have this evening thank you very much Mrs manager mr attorney yes i just uh the only thing I want to talk about uh tonight is we have this uh ordinance that's up for adoption it's called amending the
township code for the township of Tene to provide for additional regulation on the time place and manner of special events within the township obviously this has been discussed and debated by the council for a while now um it is up for adoption tonight i just want to
explain uh for our viewers at home I suppose the uh the inside the agenda packet just to avoid any confusion we have uh I'll call two versions of the of the same ordinance in here the first is a redline version of the ordinance uh
and this is starting page 19 in the agenda packet this is a version uh uh of the ordinance red line comparing it to what is currently in the the ordinance that is currently in the books uh and so you can see what we have now versus what the proposed ordinance would would look
like but what what changes have been made the second one that starts on page 25 of the agenda packet this is a redline version of the one uh that was uh initially sought to be introduced by the council on um February 25th and the
changes that were made since that time since that time between uh the the version that the council was initially considering introducing on the 25th and the one that uh the council is considering adopting now um and then the third thing that's in this in this
packet starting on page 30 31st 31st on page 31 is a memo uh that was drafted by our special counsel uh Donaldy who we uh the council chose to hire to review the constitutionality of this proposal um
this was upon uh request of of a resident I believe was Paul Regoven who asked that we that we provide this uh the council chose to wave uh their attorney wave attorney client privilege for purposes of this memo only uh to provide his analysis to the township
that way the township could uh the uh the members of the public could evaluate and see the consideration that has gone into this which say has been substantial this is obviously the council has debated a lot we've spent a the lawyers have spent a lot of time reviewing this uh and so I just wanted to clarify in
case anyone was confused why they saw two of the same two of what looks like the same ordinance in the packet and what the southern memo was that they' never seen before i just wanted to provide some explanation to the to the public about that that's all I have tonight okay thank you very much uh at this point we'll go into the public
hearing and adoption of ordinances um Kristen do you want to read that out uh loud ordinances we have two this evening which we are familiar with we have or 2025 amending the township code to
revise no parking on certain days to include a portion of Hargrees A and we have ordinance number 20-2025 amending the township code for the township of teen act to provide for additional regulation on the time place and manner of special events within the township thank you Mr clerk at this time
the hearing is open we'll first first start with comments from those in the audience then we'll go to those on Zoom and as customary if there's any uh local township clergy that wanted to speak first on this hearing rabbi Friedman no good okay anyone else like to speak on
this mr mr seagull the other Mr seagull no Rich good you're good thank you uh good evening oh this is not working huh
okay i'll speak loud rich Seagull 25-y year homeowner here in Tina um you may have heard that uh Mahmud Khalil's wife Nure gave birth to their son yesterday he was not able to be
there he's incarcerated the reason he's incarcerated is because he led uh demonstrations for Palestine um I have also led demonstrations for Palestine i've done
it many times uh Mahmud Khalil is uh Palestinian he's got a green card um I'm white and Jewish and my family's been here for a hundred years but I'm still wondering uh as this country slides into fascism when are they coming
for me um you're voting on uh an ordinance tonight bergenfield recently passed a similar a uh ordinance uh I was there and I spoke out against it
and uh I don't see a timer is there one you're just timing me informally okay so um when I spoke in Bergenfield after I spoke uh an Orthodox Jewish man got up and he said um Rich Seagull is Jewish he
knew my name i don't know him he said Rich Seagull is Jewish the way the KKK pretend to be Christians which was pretty shocking to hear and uh of course in my mind it's like okay you guys are supporting the mass murder of tens of thousands of Arab
children and yet I'm the racist so what it brings to mind is the fact that this issue is really a zero sum issue either you all are crazy or I'm crazy either you all are evil or I'm
evil history is going to make that decision but in the meantime our first amendment guarantees freedom of speech and Bergenfield took a step to squash that and to participate in our country's slide into fascism and Tene's vote
tonight is going to determine whether or not this town participates in that as well nom Chomsky said um free speech means um excuse me free speech is for people you don't like or it's for nobody at
all that's really important you don't like the fact that we demonstrate against illegal Israeli real estate events i know you don't like it we have the right to do it i demand
that we continue to have the right to do it if you pass this ordinance we're going to continue to do what we do if you arrest us fine you'll make things more complicated for the police and the courts don't pass this ordinance
thank you for letting me speak thank you thank you Mayor thank you council members for giving the opportunity to speak my name is Rabbi David Feldman and I'm here regarding this ordinance restricting uh to a certain extent the time place
and manner uh other than it was until now which is based on the notion that these activities taking place especially next to a synagogue is anti-semitic in any way or hate speech and I would like
to testify my personal experience that I experienced in many cases including in Tene where these events in no way are anti-semitic uh all what they are saying is condemning or speaking up against
crimes being committed uh in most of the cases at at least respect the Jewish people uh we see respect to Jewish people respect to Judaism but in the same time speaking up against uh crimes taking
place people need to realize that anti-ionism is in no way anti-semitism to begin with we have to understand that Judaism and Zionism is not the same judaism is a religion zionism is a political movement uh the acts committed
by the state of Israel which are being opposed by these events by these activities are criminal according to Judaism as well therefore masses of Jewish people worldwide in the United States and the
world over are against what we are witnessing law enforcement agents here tonight will agree that if crimes are taking place those crimes need to be stopped regardless who the perpetrators of the crimes are and by stopping a Jewish
person crossing a red light is not anti-Semitic in any way what is what these demonstrations are opposing is not only crimes being committed to Palestine but the danger brought upon the Jewish people when all
of this is being done in the name of all Jews when one conflates anti-ionism with anti-semitism one is making a statement that God forbid all Jews are behind all these crimes which ends up making a statement that all Jews are accountable God forbid to what is taking place this
is anti-semitism finally by oppressing the voice of the oppressed we're not solving anti-semitism but exacerbating it and fueling it we need to address the problem and
not oppress other people because of it the only solution is going to be to stop the cause to unfortunately this mis this this bad feelings that people have towards Jews and this is why every right-minded person should stand up and
we as Jewish people do the same to reduce hatred towards the Jewish people we we ask respectfully of the members of the council to please reject uh this ordinance and grant the freedom of speech this beautiful value of the
United States god bless America anybody else anybody else in ch anybody else in chambers as I speak mr rose anybody else after Mr rose okay miss Angel after please
good evening howard Rose Tene resident perhaps you can see from my seating arrangement that I'm turning a new leaf uh I want to thank the rabbi who just spoke uh really gave a very substantial amount of information as food for
thought and I understand what this council is trying to do they're trying to contain a situation that I think may be detrimental to the general population in some semblances some situations on some occasions but I I don't think that you pass I don't want to use the word
draconian but strong strong legislation on freedoms of assembly of speech etc as a deterrent against something that hasn't happened because there are sufficient enforcement regulations already available to utilize if something is a
miss whether it's behavior property invasion uh whatever the negative situation is our current laws seem to be very able to handle it you know sometimes you put another layer
on the onion that's what makes you cry not just taking one off thank you Mr rose maxine next hi good evening i want to thank the council especially Councilwoman Goldberg and
Councilman Pagan for their due diligence to make sure that we get things right on so many levels and um this ordinance for the noise is um is a really big one that you're really trying to to manage so I commend you for trying to get it right
and for doing what is best for all of Tene i know this is a hard one and I don't envy your position but thank you for your commitment to that to um remembering your oath of office and your commitment to the Constitution of the United States and of New Jersey so thank
you very much talk to you soon hi Leila Graham Tene resident um I strongly oppose the ordinance being considered tonight which so obviously is meant to target the free speech and the right to assemble of people of conscience people have joined a global community in justified outrage over the
genocide being perpetuated by the fascist Zionist settler colony of Israel against Palestine and its indigenous people it's bad enough that American tax dollars are hemorrhaging into military expenditures for the Israeli settler colony to continue its blood bath in
Gaza the West Bank Syria Lebanon as well as butchering my own people in Yemen and now this town wants to silence those who oppose such violence and bloodshed sounds like the beginnings of fascism to me why else would Tene need such an ordinance if this town can choose to
take an official genocidal violence stance against Palestine that's your prerogative but how dare anyone attempt to silence the rightful disscent and protest of residents who stand up for what they believe in you're not after the best interests of your residents if this unconstitutional ordinance is
passed you may please a select few who want to crush a liberation movement and keep the public's eyes away from the atrocities Israel is command committing in Palestine but to what end six weeks ago Israel ended the ceasefire in Gaza by slaughtering over 500 people most of
them children in less than 24 hours i woke up to images of rows and rows of dead babies in their pajamas to the sounds of mothers screaming in grief over their martyed loved ones to the videos of shell shocked men women and children praying the funeral prayer over
a miscarried fetus this Palestinian fetus didn't even get the chance to to take their first breath before Israel annihilated them people are being burned in their displacement tents burned alive people's body parts are strewn in the
streets of Kanunas the people of Gaza start each day with counting their martyed loved ones from the massacres of the previous night entire families have been completely wiped from the registry why are you smirking is this
funny do you know what that feels like to have your entire bloodline destroyed in a matter of minutes bombs aimed at your home by sadistic genocidal depraved regime that will stop at nothing to end your people and all for what stolen
land land that's stolen right here in this town when folks in Tene protest against the theft of land that has been stolen from people who are facing a holocaust instead of allowing people their right to protest y'all want to shut them up
y'all want to silence them and I guess this is how tinic is going to go down in history congratulations and I'll end by saying to the hundreds of thousands of martyrs of Gaza and the millions living at Holocaust the people of Tene will continue to stand by you free Palestine
valor Leven Tene resident for 20 years uh I think tonight's town council meeting is obvious proof that nobody's first amendment rights are being violated i'm hearing a lot of conversation about world events i'm not
hearing a lot of specifics on why the ordinance should or should not be passed i do want to thank the council for their due diligence in updating the wording on the ordinance we residents we residents of Tina okay
us have an obligation to live with each other in in a calm and polite and civic way and this ordinance right now you must think it's garbage a lot of you people think it's garbage it isn't it is
to everyone's benefit and we just have to give it time to see that this is it's really for everyone's benefit i hope the town council passes it and remember to vote in the upcoming primaries thank you thank you very much
Aby rabbi you next Berlin Tak resident i think more of this crowd instead of quoting Nam Chomsky I'll paraphrase Christopher Hitchens uh sometimes you have to give people the opportunity to say the crazy and stupid stuff out loud i want to tell you a couple of personal
stories and I'm not going to speak to the ordinance itself um but I'd like you to I'd like you to understand where people are coming from and by the way if we're going to be worried about tree trimmers out at 7:59 in the morning if that's really what angers people maybe
some of these stories personal stories frankly will hit home uh as well just understand where we are uh before Thanksgiving on a Friday night coming home from my son's bar mitzvah I was with three of my four children walking down the block along Phelps Park car
sped up stopped screamed at my kids i was 10 paces behind them free Palestine die Israel anti-semitism is anti-Judaism we would all be in the same line and those of you who hear that know exactly what I
mean all they knew is that I had a particular hat on my head a yamock on my head they didn't know my political beliefs they didn't know where I stood they saw something that identified me as part of a particular group and they felt the need to harass my children i'll tell
you another story march 28th Friday evening 10 p.m I was walking with my brother along Queen Anne Road to a friend of ours who was having a party for the memorial of his mother i think it was her the anniversary the 15 years since her
passing car speeding going northbound along Queen Anne sees us all they see is a hat on our head a particular hat frankly the same one I have on my head right now what do they do they scream out yeah we were k here in Tene
people are on edge for a reason they know that when their kids go out they hear they see things that make them very uncomfortable rightfully uncomfortable they're scared they're worried they don't know what tomorrow brings and that
has nothing to do with what's happening as awful as it may be no matter what side you're on over 5,000 miles away it's here within the 15 square miles of Tene i urge you please protect your residents please at least have some
empathy understand what they're going through don't deny it this is what people are feeling and this is happening now in 2025 thank you thank you very much Rabbi daniel Friedman TK resident it's wonderful to be together uh with friends
uh and neighbors and even with those uh who may not uh be neighbors but came to be able to express themselves uh this evening I want to thank uh all of the members of the council for doing the right thing two weeks ago and God willing following up on it this evening
by finding the right balance we know that the first amendment is sacred in this country and there are five freedoms in the first amendment there's the freedom of religion and there's the freedom of speech and there's the freedom of the press and there's the freedom to assemble and we have to find the right balance between all of these
and that's what this ordinance does in a totally reasonable way time place and manner nobody's ability to express themselves is being taken away as my neighbor Mrs leven said you can hear it here tonight people have the right to
say what's on their mind uh I wasn't planning on invoking it but since so many uh invoked the Holocaust and I have to say in a rather grotesque way I thought I would actually talk about something that's personal to me uh tomorrow is Yoma Shaw the Holocaust
Remembrance Day this year it actually falls out exactly on the 80th anniversary of my grandfather's liberation by the United States Third Army on a death march between Dhau and Flossenberg he was starving along with all of the
Jews who were with him on that terrible death march and the tanks of Patton's third army stopped when they saw starving Jews on the road and my grandfather never forgot that the first soldier that he saw wearing the American
uniform who threw open the hatch of his tank before chasing down the Nazis and the SS just happened to be African-Amean he told us about the greatness of this country about what was possible in this country about how we can live together
in this country and to his dying day July 4th appropriately 2008 he never forgot the gift of America we're gathered here tonight as friends and as neighbors to appreciate our
freedoms to find the right balance where we can have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion and for those who don't understand that part of my religious belief is that I pray to God three times a day to return myself and my family one
day to Jerusalem to Zion then they don't understand the first thing about me it's as much a part of my faith as anything and those who are honest about Judaism will acknowledge that thank you very much thank
you hello everybody my name is Haba born and raised here in Tene um just so the Yankees guy takes notes um even if this ordinance existed before the stories that you shared it wouldn't have changed the experience whatsoever um it's clear
that many people here only support this ordinance because you guys think that we can shut up the people who disagree with us it's so silly that we're even here talking about this ordinance 20-2025 the ordinance edits have done
nothing since the last reading to align and heed the first amendment the important things to note the first amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that the right guarantees the right to peaceful assembly and protest period requiring
permits for political expression especially when enforced unevenly which is obviously what's going to happen it's a form of prior restraint which courts have repeatedly ruled
unconstitutional the ordinance is still after the edits unconstitutional and just because the firm that we consulted tried to find a way around it on paper the intentions behind this has already been made clear as will be the
application of this ordinance you want to silence speech that you personally disagree with and especially the speech that's bad for business let me highlight why the ordinance cites that the rise in protests in the last year took to to
remind or inform the council on the nature of this large majority of protests my Israel home my home in Israel Nephes Benevves and these are just recent and many many other illegal Israeli real estate corporations have
hosted sales and expose of stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank and otherwise the sale of this land is illegal under international law this town council has not only allowed for these illegal sales but have also
allowed for discriminatory practices that go against civil rights laws but above that members of this council have directly benefited from these illegal events and we've witnessed members like Hillary Goldberg in attendance and Mayor
Schwarz directly benefit from advertising and marketing these events in his Jewish Link paper the protest of these illegal events are justified and the objection to these events is constitutional what is
unconstitutional and is a blatant conflict of interest is silencing the people who are making calls against it bergenfield may have passed something similar to this with incredible disregard to the Constitution and our freedoms but just because another town passes an ordinance that object
obstructs justice it does not make the ordinance and censorship any less unconstitutional thank you Mr after Mr can after sorry yeah next you're you're on
deck that's That works that works good evening members of the council hope everybody enjoyed a pleasant and meaningful holiday i said good evening my name is Jeffrey Kowitz i'm a teen resident and I want to hope that everybody at this count council and in the audience enjoyed a meaningful and
peaceful holiday season so far i feel as if it's Groundhog Day i didn't come to talk about anything except the ordinance but as I said here about a month ago I'm a proud American i'm a proud Jew i will not stand
silently in a room and hear utter falsehoods and use of language by others regarding a claimed or alleged genocide in Gaza let us be very clear and unmistakable there is no genocide going
on in Gaza as that sorry as that term say no one spoke when you were speaking let him finish no matter what he says continue please as that term is well understood and practically applied
including under the definitions of the international holocaust um commission that has been adopted by many states i didn't come to speak about that but as I said I will not sit silently by with this kind of falsehood being articulated
with regard to the ordinance you've considered it you've made the changes i don't need to belabor the point the sheer fact of the matter is that your analysis speaks about notwithstanding belief people's belief that the First Amendment has no
limitations shared by justices Black and Douglas but they're not constituting the law there are is an allowance for time place and manner restrictions you've efforted hard and appropriately to impose
those and there's nothing preventing you nor should there be anything preventing you to respond to the claims that have been articulated tonight and elsewhere about the concerns and what this ordinance does to ameliate it and everything about
who it's designed to protect or who it's designed to shunt or who it's designed to silence is sheer speculation and I have confidence in the police department here and in the officials that if the ordinance is being applied in an
inappropriate manner which I don't think it will be but if it is this government is robust enough to address those concerns which at this juncture are sheer speculation i urge you to pass it there's nothing to matter with
protecting free speech through time place and manner regulations the views of justices Black and and Douglas from decades ago that there is no ability to in any way regulate or restrict speech is simply a
misstatement an ill-informed observation of the law thank you so much thank you Yousef mr b you first good evening you Latina resident this is not just about a policy this is about a
fundamental rights our right to speak out to gather to be heard tene has always been a community that values civic engagement we stood up against injustice we've spoken out for change and we've always done so peacefully and with purpose trying to curb that with an
ordinance sends a chilling message not just to the protesters but to every resident who believes their voice matters this ordinance threatens to punish people not for violence or disorder but simply for showing up it imposes unnecessary restrictions permits
fines or vague limitations that could be selectively enforced and we know how that plays out it targets the most vulnerable the most vocal and those fighting the hardest to be seen and heard let me ask you this who benefits from silencing protest it's
not the community it shows it's those who are uncomfortable with accountability and discomfort should never be the basis for policym public safety is important yes but there are already laws in place to address true disorder what we don't need
is a blanket ordinance that stifles expression under the guise of control that's not safety that's censorship we are living in a time when local action matters more than ever what happens in TX sends a signal far beyond these walls
if we pass this ordinance we're not just we're not protecting peace we are betraying the very principles that make TX strong i urge you do not let fear shape our future vote no on this ordinance stand with people not against them thank you
mr herman next you'll go next Mr rick my name is Elliot Berman i'm a lawyer i've lived in Tene with my wife for almost 30 years and I have raised my three children here i spoke a little
over a year ago at a township council meeting albeit on Zoom on March 19th 2024 also spoke at the township council meetings on February 25th and March 11th 2025 in all three times I spoke about the need for contentneutral time place
and manner restrictions on speech in light of what has been going on in Tene for over a year as deputy mayor stated at the February 25th meeting it is the council's job to protect to ensure the safety of TX residents as well as their
feeling of safety at this point it appears that the council is prepared to amend the township code to provide for additional contentneutral time place and manner regulations you have heard some objections to this proposed ordinance as
Senator Moyahan famously said everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts nobody who reads the proposed ordinance can legitimately contend that the proposed ordinance regulation is not contentneutral it does not forbid demonstrations where
people want to advocate for and against anything they want to advocate for and against it simply restricts the time manner and places where such demonstrations can take place a perfectly legitimate exercise of this council's authority under existing
Supreme Court president i highly recommend that you pass this seven to nothing and if you do I thank you very much for doing so thank you i want to thank the town council first and foremost show your name sorry i'm
sorry josh Tuplo uh as a proud Jewish resident of this township I come before you with an urgent plea for safety and basic human dignity the amendment under consideration to regulate the time place and manner of pro- kamas rallies is not a political issue it is a moral and
communal necessity the support for radical Palestinianism for kamas by protesters who come to tene is an attempt to intimidate our community this is not a political movement it's a support for a death cult kamas and radical Palestinians glorify the murder
of civilians use their own people as human shields and teach children to idolize martyrdom when individuals take to the streets waving kamas flags showing pictures of Hitler on their cell phones which I personally have have seen chanting slogans like from the river to
the sea they are not expressing a political opinion they are endorsing a genocidal ideology that seeks the elimination of Jews worldwide these rallies if left unregulated threaten to spill into neighborhoods where Jewish children elderly Holocaust survivors and
Jewish families go to feel safe no person let alone a child feels safe while extremists nearby celebrate the massacre of Jews or call for the eradication of the only Jewish state we are not asking to ban speech we're asking for reasonable safeguards just as
we wouldn't allow a white supremacist rally outside a black church we cannot allow radical Palestinian gatherings to go unchecked near Jewish spaces without this amendment our township sends the message that Jewish safety is negotiable we urge you to pass this regulation not
to limit freedom but to to preserve it for all of us thank you very much any Mr seagull mr seal back next thank you my name is David Seagull uh I live in Teneck i've lived here for
approximately 30 years i've paid taxes to help pay for schools bill parks and roads i support the police i've coached softball and I've spent money in local stores to help support the merchants of the community nobody's paying me to sit here i attend synagogues in this
community and I want to make sure that my children and my grandchildren are not forced to stay away out of fear i've been at protests i stood across from a protester who ran his finger across his across his neck i urge you to pass this ordinance i'm going to leave the constitutional
arguments to the constitutional experts but I'd like to say that I'm confident history is going to prove that you are not crazy and you are not evil thank you you need anybody else in the room
next good evening my name is Yehudit Robinson and I live in Tene with my husband and children mayor Schwarz Deputy Mayor Oregon Deputy Mayor Belchure Council Member G Council Member Goldberg Council May Member Katz Council Member Pagan i came in person tonight to
thank each of you for unanimously introducing an ordinance on April 8th to offering guidelines for time place and manner of demonstrations i implore you to pass this ordinance and make it official eight weeks ago the Bibbis
family in Israel buried a mom with her two babies kamas terrorists had abducted them from their home on October 7th and documented the atrocities on GoPro cameras during this attack Hamas terrorists murdered Shiri's parents and abducted Shir's husband Yardine while in
captivity in Gaza Kamas terrorists murdered Shiri and her babies kamas terrorists held the corpses hostage for over a year and refused to divulge whether Shiri and her babies were alive or dead shiri's husband Yardine who was released after more than a year in punishing captivity did not find out the
fates of Shiri and their babies for a month after his release at a macab transfer of the corpses to Israel Kamas terrorists substituted a different corpse for Shiri until Kamas was pressured into returning Shiri's body shiri and her two babies are buried in the same casket the family said they
will remain together a news outlet reported that Holocaust survivors in the city of Raovot lined the streets as the Bibbus funeral procession drove past "we understand the heart of this family," one of the survivors said "we experienced horrors we saw our loved
ones murdered and some of us still don't know what happened to our parents who were kidnapped in the Holocaust that's why we are here hugging the Beas family and wishing Yard and the husband and father the strength to rebuild his life i share this tragedy here tonight because the Hamas terrorist violence
didn't begin with actions began with words of hatred spread over many years in many contexts the much larger holocaust also began not with actions but with words i turn to you as teams
council and ask you as a fellow parent as a fellow adult who cares about young children to pass the proposed ordinance for time place and manner of demonstrations this ordinance is first amendment compliant constitutionally sound and based off of ones that were
successfully adopted in Hackinack and Bergenfield please don't let there be a through line from the words of violence that have been spoken at scene demonstrations and god forbid acts of violence against moms and their babies this ordinance this proposed ordinance
protects all residents in their homes and houses of worship anyone who wishes to travel to Tina to agitate is welcome on the municipal green it's too late to save Shiri and her babies it's not too late to protect us thank you
paula Regoven 40 uh resident for 42 years here in Teneck i'm speaking on behalf of one first on behalf of one town one vote um we join many community voices who are requesting a postponement
of a vote on this ordinance it's become known as the pro protest restriction ordinance putting a 12-page legal memorandum from a constitutional law expert on the town's website on a holiday weekend before the Tuesday
council meeting provides totally inadequate opportunity for the public to review the ordinance and and the writing of the um constitutional lawyer and to compare it to the proposed ordinance even a cursory review of the proposed
ordinance raises many questions about the def definition of such terms as religious establishment religious program or activity among many other issues such as distances and time restrictions this is an extremely important ordinance and the public ought
to be given adequate time to review and comment on it that's from one town one vote personally I strongly oppose this protest ordinance i'm Jewish and it's very clear from the comments of other other people tonight
that we disagree on issues such as genocide such as Gaza such as Israel there's disagreement that's fine but what if a group opposes an event where the property in settlements is being advertised for sale the group
believes the sale of the property in the settlements in the West Bank is illegal the group organizing the sale or or advertising a property is renting space in a religious facility or it's the
space is being donated by the religious organization the 100 foot rule is for religious institutions but if this is just a rental then it is not an organi event organized by the religious facility this is not addressed in the in
the ordinance another one since I'm an environmental activist supposing the new EPA Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldon was in invited to speak at a religious facility here in Tene he wants his he wants to fire
massive numbers of workers who enforce the Clean Air and Water Act and other important regulations he wants to cut billions from the EPA budget he has already eliminated environmental justice programs and so on the church synagogue or other religious facility rented out
space to the group that's organizing the event the group finds out a group finds out about the speech one day in advance but there's limits uh um a number of days in advance you can organize get a
permit um the event is not sponsored by a religious organization i see no reason the 100f foot rule should be allowed as it is not a program of the religious organization it's too late to apply for a special event permit thank you Paul
and also the 100 foot rule would put people next door in front of a home not the religious institution it would be in front of a home good evening council my name is Dwayne Harley i'm a TX resident been here since
1970 i too was a coach basketball baseball i too u been very involved in the um community um I'm 100% opposed this ordinance i think one of the things this this ordinance is not neutral on
his face i think someone was saying what exactly is wrong with it it's not neutral face because we all know what it's directing towards um it's not going to affect the bikeons or walkathons the same way that is is affecting or impacting people protesting um something
that's immoral um it's also overburdens overburdensome there's some language in here that says not only um no special event shall occur and no person shall participate in a special event absent
the issuance of a permit so if one just attends one of these events they need a permit that seems overly excessive um one thing we need to do I think is we need to really try to get to having
peace right in order to get peace it's just not the absence of tension right it's the presence of justice so we need to come down to really what's causing the protest and let's deal with that let's talk about what's causing the protest and and um maybe then if we can
kind of figure that out and get on the same accord you won't have all these uh the disagreements the protest of people in everyone's community um also there's hate everywhere i was with a bunch of students last week four black students
canvasing political canvasing on Mland Avenue and the um a resident over there called the police on them why because they were black right i don't know but the police was called after they they followed them for four blocks and was u
spewing some you know having some trying to have a conversation with them and then they called the police um all they were doing was doing um uh political canvasing which everyone does all the time um and they're teen residents as well so we call the police on our own
residents in this town apparently um also I want to just make a comment that nobody's an outsider if they see an injustice right we got to get away from calling people outsiders if they see an injustice happening right because
injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere thank you thank you very much anybody else hi my name is Clana Shields i'm a teen resident and I've lived here for about 18 years um I didn't intend to be here
tonight and so my remarks are a little bit off the cuff because I didn't think I would have to be here tonight to talk about the harassment and like an ordinance that should just pass as a no-brainer while several of the non lawyers here made claims about First
Amendment and other imagined violations I just want to remind you all um and the audience the following the ordinance was reviewed by First Amendment attorneys it's well within the parameters of time place and manner restrictions that have been consistently upheld by the Supreme
Court of the United States no one is silencing free speech you can say whatever hate you want and you do um we are safeguarding harassment while our council is diverse you've all have something in common you're all members
of minority groups and each one of you has felt at some point what it feels like to be harassed because of who you are it's not a first amendment right nor a peaceful protest to protest synagogues and homes
with drums and amplification devices at 10:00 in the at night in an effort to harass the residents the ordinance is actually there to protect people's first amendment rights to live freely to live
peacefully and I thank you in advance for all voting in favor of the ordinance thank you thank you anybody else in the room want to speak yes sir thank
you good evening my name is Rabbi Manstein i'm here to oppose the proposed bill i believe that this is taking the rights of many people including us from the Jewish community our Torah requires us to oppose Zionism in the strongest
terms my mother came from Palestine my grandparents youth my grandparents used to live together with the Palestinian people neighbors without any problem we are against the whole occupation we are against the genocide we want to be able
to to express our belief and all US citizens should have their freedom thank you anybody else in the room want to speak okay with that Mr clerk we have anyone on Zoom go
ahead bringing in Deb B please state your name for the record you have three minutes good this is Good evening sorry good evening everybody ordinances 18 and 20-2025 this public hearing this is not
general good and welfare just giving a reminder deb Deborah Bladeberg you have three minutes good evening first of all I just want to thank uh ex Mayor Pagan and Hillary Goldberg for taking the time to make sure that this ordinance was constitutionally correct some of us ar
you know armchair constitutional lawyers were a little concerned and so we appreciate the fact that the time was taken to listen to the residents concerns and do something about it to that end I would like to thank you and hope the council is voting in favor i would also like to point out that it's
very nice we've got some paid actors here say hi to the Ayatollah for me please i mean should we be calling homelands with all this Iranian infiltration and uh just want to say once again thanks uh for dealing with this constitution um and also to make
sure that there was no conflicts because I'm aware that the uh lawyer that was originally involved in it might have represented a council member a previous time and you know we want to make sure we keep things nice and clean and to those of you crying this is going to take my first amendment rights away no
it's not what it's going to do is make sure that the law is upheld and that the police are able to follow the law and have clear guidelines so that when something may happen that you're not behaving you will be dealt with same as if we don't behave we get dealt with by the police they'll pick everybody up if
they need to so it's just to make sure things are done by the law your First Amendment right is still very much there you can still scream all your hateful little lies all your misinformation all the little things you like to whine about but at the end of the day the Constitution will be upheld the law will
be upheld and thank God the grown-ups are in charge in government and we will finally have some common sense anyway thank you very much thank you for actually taking as I said taking the time and um there's no
genocide in Gaza do me a favor have a good one guys thank you next we look at that yeah yeah thank you Dad we are bringing in Keith Kaplan turns us yes thank you Mr mayor and Council
one second it's a hearing so we have to continue right on the set please thank you Keith all you you have three minutes thank you Mr clerk keith Kaplan TK resident um Mr uh mayor and council thank you there's uh
not a word in this ordinance regarding Jews synagogues or shooles and well actually it's not entirely true the Scari Hollandbeck opinion does quote from board of airport commissioners of city of Los Angeles against Jews for
Jesus but specifically nothing in this opinion relates to Jews and that's important because all of our laws must be contentneutral and speakers have spoken here that some people are for the
ordinance and some are against but I'd like you to ask yourself a question because no ordinance should be evaluated or passed based on a particular issue on any particular day and if the issue that this ordinance were being used on were
people showing up outside of a mosque and screaming so loud that they couldn't pray on any given Friday morning and the police were called under this ordinance to preserve order and allow them to pray at the mosque i want you to ask yourself
this would the people arguing against the ordinance today be okay with this ordinance and let's not kid ourselves they'd be demanding it but I also want to ask you to ask yourself this would the people that are in favor of the
ordinance today suddenly be against it and the answer is starkly no the people supporting it today would be in favor of the ordinance especially when it would be allowing Muslims to pray in peace and
that's because that is in accordance with our constitutional values and I want you to really remember that when you speak because uh you know as a previous person mentioned there are things that were said regarding this
ordinance that deserve to be called out sadly the things that Rich Seagull said have nothing to do with the ordinance so I'll reserve my time to call that out at good in welfare the things that Leila Graham said have nothing to do although it does make me wonder if she fell in
her head recently but I I mean we really need to talk about the first amendment protections that we are for as a society because the first amendment protects offensive discourse it protects hateful
ideas it protects crude language and you know that's important as well in terms of what government does and what it protects but what it truly always has protected and is a core fundamental value of our society is the right of the
people to be able to express themselves in their synagogues churches mosques wherever they are and to pray as a group and if you are offensively and intentionally doing something to disrupt intentionally trying to disrupt so that
they cannot exercise that right you must have freedom graham fell on her head we're gonna ask you shut up have a good night Richard thank you i have Tova here you are free to unmute
and you have three minutes hello council uh yeah I am really disturbed at some of the conversation that's happening your name for the record to Tova Fry thank you and this this
conversation is totally disturbing where uh people are turning what's going on totally upside down there's number one I wanted to state that um I'm speaking tonight in memory
of my aunt who was uh killed um when she was fighting the Nazis uh uh with the partisans in Yugoslavia and I swear that she would turn over in her grave if she knew what had become uh of her fight
where now the people who are were fighting against the Nazis have themselves committed genocide in uh uh the land of Palestine and it's just disgusting to hear people trying to deny
the murder of uh over a 100,000 people at this point uh is is being denied at all so but I want to get back to the topic of the uh ordinance at hand so these people are talking about people
demonstrating against uh prayers in a synagogue which is not what instigated all this ordinance in the first place what instigated this ordinance is the sa sale of stolen Palestinian land inside the walls of synagogues or in people's
private residences or wherever they do it if the Tene City Council were to take action against the sale of stolen Palestinian land then we wouldn't have to demonstrate against those sales would we so it's the fact that they are using
these hiding behind these religious institutions and buildings to have their illegal sales of stolen Palestinian land that we have to demonstrate in the first place and why is it so important look at what Trump is trying to do to Gaza right
now he wants to turn it into a resort for the rich and wealthy of the world look what his son-in-law is trying to do in the West Bank jared Kushner owns billions of dollars investments in uh financing sale of stolen Palestinian
land in the West Bank the both of them schemed to profit off of the suffering and the uh genocide of the Palestinian people this is what we're protesting and this ordinance seeks to deny us the opportunity to even protest against the
sale of stolen Palestinian land we will not stop we will not stop it's up to the people of the world to stop this genocide right now thank you Toba we have Adam Weissman three minutes
adam Weissman Tene resident can you hear me yes loud and clear okay great while there are strong legal arguments against the special event ordinance I'd like to speak instead on how it will hurt our community this month is the 35th anniversary of the day Ten Police Officer Gary Spath shot black teenager
Philip Panel in the back as his hands were raised do we really want to pass an ordinance that would prohibit holding memorial service for Philip Panel outside of Ten Police Headquarters protesting at police stations has led to the release of wrongfully detained persons and cretailed abuses when police know that they are under intense scrutiny the events that catapulted
Malcolm X who was slain 60 years ago into being a public figure was a protest at New York City's 28th police precinct in response to the brutal breeding and jailing of Nation of Islam member Johnson Hinton we cannot claim to believe that Black Lives Matter without recognizing this long the long history
and ongoing reality of police violence against black people and the importance of protest often at police stations to challenge this abuse and injustice in February dozens of anti-hate groups organized a counterprotest against a demonstration by anti-Arab racists and Islamophobes at a mosque in Brooklyn
none of these groups calling for the state to None of these groups called for the state to prohibit anti-mosque protest the First Amendment pro protects not just the expression of views we cherish but also of those we ignore we put our rights to free expression at risk when we fail to defend everyone's right to express their views without state interference i might be delighted
to see a crackdown of the bigoted Westboro Baptist Church's protest at LGBTQ friendly Episcopal churches but I know such a policy would also endanger protest I support like the AIDS coalition to unleash powers watershed stopped the church protest on December 10th 1989 when 7,000 protested at St
patrick Patrick's Cathedral to denounce the Catholic Church's quote "AIDS foam homophobic misogynistic and anti-abortion policies." Limiting the protest restriction to times when worship services are being conducted merely encourages the sly addition of prayer to any controversial event being held at a place of worship in order to ban protest this ordinance also seeks to
restrict ambiguously defined disruptive activities within 100 ft of a private residence we should remember when an Ohio court sought to prohibit protests led by Rabbi Ivy Weiss at the Ohio home of the notorious Trebinka extermination camp guard who came be known as Ivan the Terrible when the anti-Nazi protesters came out the area nations and KKK came
out to counterprotest a local judge and enjoyed simultaneous competing protests meaning the fascists and bigots could shield the Holocaust perpetrator by showing up every time Rabbi Weiss did making it legally impossible to ever protest Ivan the Terrible while there are few Nazi concentration camp guards left there is no shortage of neo-Nazis
do we want an ordinance that would bar protest at the home of a bigot to let them know that hate has no place in our community protest isn't supposed to be convenient isn't obligated to be polite isn't required to be popular and can be used in support of the both the best causes and work but is one of the most powerful tools to protest and challenge injustice and threats to our health and
safety instead of seeking to curtail protest let's prove that Phoenix can handle robust debate as Lewis Brandai said "If there be time to expose discussion the falsehood and fallacies to avert the evil by the process of education the remedy to be applied is more speech not enforced silence." Thank you
thank you we have Dia Turpra you have three minutes greetings and good evening my name is Dat Turpra i am the operations director at the Council on American Islamic Relations New Jersey chapter at CARE New
Jersey we're not going to get into the specifics of the so-called foreign affairs uh but this notion of a right balance we already have laws on this we already have plenty of laws on this we already have permits the law as it
exists is not inadequate and municipalities used to not have any of this stuff they used to not have any of this stuff permits and you got to do this and you need this first and you have to do that they used to not have any of this the law is adequate instead what we're doing here is we're saying
that it's in the interest of public safety but in fact we're making it harder to get permits we're making it harder to assemble we're not uh this is not about protecting all houses of worship it's about decreasing people's behavior to assemble and protest because
we don't like that behavior and it's about these real estate events that are that happen to be held at a synagogue they could be held anywhere it just happens to be held at a synagogue just drop this whole ordinance just drop this whole thing and don't
continue pursuing it don't continue pursuing how to make it work with a constitutional lawyer even if you do something that is not unconstitutional seeing how you can jam it through is not the right approach but we put a lot of time and
effort into it so far well forget it you're making us spend our time on this now and you will spend a lot more time and effort in defending this ordinance later so drop it now while you can this bias is not speculation because what
other protests are held and have been held around houses of worship none don't make an argument that this benefits mosques because they don't hold events selling stolen land that deserve to be protested you're clearly trying to protect these real estate events that
every person has the right to oppose and you're trying to slide it by because it's held at a synagogue so implicitly everyone who opposes it must be anti-semitic right no all these people are actors on someone's payroll right no people are not trying to disrupt a
synagogue for being a synagogue ever notice that these protests don't happen when these events aren't running huh are you concerned about protesters near the synagogue h don't hold these events that's a bright idea or move them
somewhere else get a hall use someone's home get a hotel i also want to echo Adam Weissman's point about protesting at by police stations and at homes protests do not have to be polite that's not the point of course you consider public safety but we have laws in place
so I urge you to just drop this ordinance now while you can and enforce the laws you already have and fairly thank you we have Vincent we have Vincent Petti up vincent PVetti up you have three minutes
please unmute yes can you hear me yes loud and clear thank you good evening i'm Vincent Pvetti i live in Tene and I speak tonight on behalf of the Coalition of Neighborhood Associations working for a better T-neck coalition of five
neighborhood associations from all parts of the township cna wishes to speak to the proposed ordinance 2020 2025 ca believes that no matter to come before this council is more important
than the task of clarifying in our code how the township will regulate and enforce procedures that protect the first amendment rights of all while assuring that the exercise of those rights protects public safety when
council sends to amend seeks to amend its code to achieve all those rights of protection the precise wording of its laws must not only be carefully crafted but the public must have an adequate time and opportunity to review and
comment knowledgeably on what is being proposed for adoption by council cna therefore strongly urges council to table or set aside tonight's proposed ordinance 202025 and proceed only when it has the
draft ordinance that meets the those affformentioned standards cna is concerned that the process for legal adoption of ordinances has been compromised and that the ordinance 202025 approved for introduction at the
council's April 8th meeting is not the same ordinance listed on tonight's agenda for second reading and approval cna believes the draft of 2020 2022 which appears in tonight's agenda is in material ways different from the
proposed ordinance that council approved for introduction on April 8th the ordinance 202025 introduced at the April 8th meeting was the public was told revised
from the original draft however no one was given a hard copy of the version being introduced the changes to the ordinance introduced by a on April 8th were read aloud though not though largely inaudibly uh by the
town attorney tonight's version seemingly incorporates various changes to that April 8th draft that were suggested by the town special counsel Thanos Garcini to make the proposed ordinance
more in line with the constitution and able to withstand judicial scrutiny the current version was first made available on the township website early in the morning of Friday April 18th eight hours after close of business prior to the town holiday this weekend hence it
effectively was not available until 36 hours ago its latence alone should disqualify it from being acted on tonight in some the coalition requests that this ordinance scheduled for second reading and approval be Thank you Vince your three minutes were up we have
Sherannne on we have Sheranne you have three minutes please feel free to unmute uh good evening my name is Sher Han Eid i'm a lifelong T- neck resident i would like to address a few points made by some of my neighbors um yes we all need
to live here peacefully and calmly together of course but we all need to live and however we cannot ignore the fact that lives and land are being stolen we cannot simply let that go speaking up for Palestine is standing up
for injustices everywhere and unfortunately many who live in Tene and beyond have not recognized that yet in terms of racist remarks being hurled at folks in town that is inexcusable but do not conflate that with the calls for a
free Palestine when everyone has experienced and I'm not belittling your experience but everyone has experienced some form of that hate at some point in their lives and it feels horrible it seems that my the Muslim and Arab community's comfort and safety in
this town are never considered rather we are branded as outsiders or paid protesters or we are belittled and mocked in our neighbors uh statements during these moments we enrich the fabric of this community we pay taxes we
send our children to attend district schools we volunteer around town again we enrich the fabric of this community so stop vilifying us for standing up for what's right any sort of safeguards put in place on language is an affront to our freedom because the fir because
first they came for the socialists and by the time they came for me there was nobody left i would like to end with a moment of silence for the nameless countless victims who have not had the luxury of being humanized in this
community and far and wide the hundreds of thousands of men women and children who have been killed and stolen from us too soon time thank you Sher and we have Sheruk
on Auda [Music] hi good evening i wanted to speak against a proposed ordinance while I recognize the importance of ensuring public safety and respecting the rights of all residents
this ordinance goes too far protests are by nature spontaneous and that's part of what makes them so powerful the First Amendment protects peaceful assembly even when it's inconvenient that's what makes this country and town so remarkable this ordinance while perhaps
well-intentioned risk silencing voices that need to be heard in the moment it's rooted in fear not in empathy or compassion yes we all want safety yes some residents have had difficult experiences including my children who have been taunted outside of a mosque i
don't dismiss that but this ordinance won't fix those concerns or problems it simply limits the ability of people to speak out to demand better and to come together when it matters the most we have real work to do to build understanding and connection in this town but this ordinance is not the
answer let's keep our values front and center and protect the rights that make this country and town and community stronger thank you we have Chuck Powers on can you hear me loud and clear
i want to pick up from what U vince Pvetti reported is the view of the Coalition for Neighborhood Associations the five organ large organizations here in town from all over and point out that the attorney
was asked to explain one of these ordinances before this hearing began and he had to do it because he had to tell people where and how and he didn't completely provide the
information how and where they can not only read the current version uh but also read what is the belated publication of the report by the constitutional
expert what we have in tonight's version is in fact as Mr revi said materially different from what you folks introduced on April 2nd you can't do
that if you have a material change you go back and reintroduce what it is you're trying to do and say and we even found out what it was that had happened to the April 8th version
including a significant number of changes that were apparently put in because of the constitutional experts suggestions we only found out about that i went looking for such a agenda item at
10:30 on Thursday night at 5:00 the next morning I found it the entire the entire provision of what it was that the public could review on this unbelievably important matter was not available to
the average person until Monday morning that's not enough material changes within 36 hours of a vote to adopt is not the way to proceed the way in which to handle this
matter is to start with a reintroduction make sure we really do need it make sure that some of the things that we've heard tonight have been adequately incorporated and that the experts views have been fully incorporated in what it
is that you are doing that's the way to avoid major challenges to the process by which this ordinance is coming before this body tonight table it reintroduce it if you have have to but for heaven's
sakes don't proceed tonight with a different document than you introduced on April 8th thank you very much what bringing in Thomas Whitehead bringing in Thomas Whitehead
thomas you have three minutes thomas feel free to unmute the floor is yours Thomas tom you are muted are you there okay Tom send us an email anybody else you see anyone else no no one else no one else this uh hearing is now closed
mr mayor do you have one more we had asked before sorry about that uh good evening i am a uh actually a resident of Bergenfield live on the Tene border been living there for about 25 years and uh a
couple of quick points uh first one which has been mentioned this ordinance is about putting a small number of guard rails uh around protests and rallies um essentially it's the same thing that was passed in Bergenfield and essentially
the council is at least in the uh ordinance is required pretty much required to approve the request for protest there's not a need to review who is protesting or what they're protesting or whatever it may be so that's the framework uh a lot of folks here tonight
have used this as a hook to talk about the Middle East conflict talk about other things uh a couple quick points on that for those who are quick to throw around the word genocide um and occupied territory you may want to consider that we all here are enjoying the fruits of
occupied territory between the Atlantic and the Pacific so for those who want to be consistent you may want to leave this place um or live with inconsistency i point the finger at myself just as much as anybody else uh I would say the same thing to
the folks here in the black jackets who uh do have the external appearance of religious Jews but are essentially rejecting thousands hundreds thousands of years of normative Judaism uh I would be more than happy to sit and talk about what's written on
Kubosian Amudbet and we can have that conversation another time not in the town council um but essentially it's a fringe group and look fringe groups in the United States everybody is entitled to uh freedom of speech um by the same
token uh in terms of talking I will tell you that I myself have spent upwards of 20 hours attending pro kamas rallies and believe it or not having very calm conversations with some of the folks there some of the folks screamed at me but some of them were willing to engage
in conversation and we did not agree we did not get to an end um but we actually did shake hands so for those who are interested in in having conversation unlike uh Mr seagull who had outbursts tonight had outbursts in Bergenfield um
that seems to be a common theme um lastly I would say in terms of what happens at these protests uh for those who say free Palestine or whatever it may be that's one thing um but once the comments start to sound like there is
only one solution inif revolution that means kill the Jews there's no other way to say it those are pretty upsetting comments that's not freedom of speech that's saying that you're going to do to me and to my family what was done in 1929 in Kron way before there was any
Zionist state way there before before there was in Israel where Jews were by their Arab neighbors had their hands chopped off and their eyes gouged out i don't want my hands chopped off i'd really prefer my eyes not be gouged out thank you thank you for your time okay
uh this hearing is now over we're gonna council speak before council speaks mr attorney please start thank you yeah there is there is one thing I want to address before the council goes uh specifically relate to the accusations that there are material changes in the ordinance that differ the ordinance
they'll be considering for adoption versus the ordinance that were that was introduced um it's simply not true and you can go back and uh anyone can watch on YouTube uh you can see the introduction of this ordinance and what happened was there was a draft version
of the ordinance the council decided to make uh four specific discrete changes uh I read them aloud uh from for everyone in the audience you could literally watch on the video you could see me typing into my computer as I was making those changes and immediat immediately sending it over to the clerk
uh so that way it could be published those four specific changes i want to I'll make this clear are in the definition of under 31B1 of special event we added in the the phrase public property in
[Music] 31B4 we changed the amount of time uh that the township has to respond to an application from 2 to three business days we changed the timing of uh events
from uh 8 am uh it was originally from 8 am to 8:00 pm we changed it from 8:00 a.m until 10 p.m changed on going to section 31B9 that is subsection H we changed it from 200 feet of the property line of
religious establishment to 100 ft of the property line establishment and that is it you can compare the two documents uh yourself you can see it all happen on the video there is nothing about this that is materially changed from the version that was introduced on that council and I just want to be as explicitly clear about that as possible
you can check the documents yourself it is all right there for everyone to view so with that thank you very much Council Gilbert thank you Mr mayor there's a lot that's been said tonight some of it heartfelt some of it political a lot of it
anti-semitic we've seen a lot of performative unity in Tene the last four months a lot of talk about safety very little talk about truth so let's be honest with each other and the public about how we got here the original version of this ordinance would not have passed constitutional
muster some got called names such as subcommittee or armchair constitutional attorney guess what the memo in the agenda packet says that Gerald Reiner and Deborah Blberg were right i tried to raise concerns in good faith instead I got called names threats letters and
threats of letters i got eraser from people who fail to learn the lesson of our lifetime let me be clear everyone in Tina deserves safety everyone in Tina deserves the right to worship without harassment that's not negotiable and neither is the Constitution that's why I
led and made the motion that this ordinance be more than emotionally satisfying i demanded it be legally sound enforcable and constitutional we had a choice we could have built this together carefully with integrity we've seen that we are stronger together when
we rise up and work together to move Tene forward but that's not how we got here today no one called me literally some chose to do this important ordinance backwards drop it before it was ready politicized fear before it was legal and then text Queen Esther to come
clean it up those who demanded action while also demanding silence from me thanks for your concern i spent more time speaking with constitutional experts than than most have spent reading the actual ordinance let me be clear this ordinance does not stop hate
it does not silence extremism it does not change the Jewish life experience that when Israel defends herself anti-semitism rises worldwide and yes right here in Tene no ordinance can legislate what lives in people's hearts what is is boundaries and better tools
for our police thank you to Mr sammon Mr scarreny this version does that but it only works if it's fairly and equitably enforced if we respect its limits and if we remember that civil rights are tested not when we protect our allies and
ourselves but when we protect people that we disagree with in America freedom is fundamental rights aren't optional they're foundational and they're the promises made by our founders and upheld by law not by public pressure or political expedience it wasn't about to
get in line and vote on something that made people feel safe at the cost of our beloved rights you do not get to erase someone for standing up for their people and then hand them a legal mess to clean up that's not safety and that's not leadership in 1991 this township was
sued by Kahanai and lost because we denied a protest in front of a residential home based on fear of confrontation a federal judge ruled that fear isn't enough emotion isn't enough we lost and Kahanai protested through the residential neighborhoods in the
northeast i was not going to let us make that mistake again and through all of it I've been here i stood at every protest literally alone or with my friend Councilman Kaplan even the ones we were told not to go to outside in the cold bearing witness i held the torn Israeli
flag with Mayor Schwarz and my friend Avi Berliner outside Keter tora after being told to go back to Awitz after seeing Nazi salutes after seeing that flag ripped from someone's grip and run over in the streets repeatedly I alone wrote the resolution unequivocally
condemning kamas and giving a muchneeded voice to the Jewish life experience an experience that this council adopted unanimously not because it was easy because it needed to be said after the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust that resolution wasn't about international politics it was about
history and it was about naming the pain and fear that Jews carry every day saying out loud that Jewish lives and Jewish safety matters when Shiri BBos and her children Ariel and Fear were confirmed murdered I wrote "Every Jewish mother is Sheri Bibbos." And 500 days
later we're still sitting Shiva there are 39 hostages that we know are not alive we are not free and 563 days later we are still sitting Shiva while others played politics the Jerusalem Post published my words my resolution didn't bring anti-semitism to Tene it exposed
it the hate was here my words became the excuse and they were the right words and I would say them again and I wouldn't do anything differently i was called brave and courageous for standing up that night but still I was erased not debated erased i made the motion to bring in independent legal review and I'm
comfortable our attorneys are comfortable with its legality and constitutionality i took the initiative and I did the hard work to get us here because a majority of this council refused to rubber stamp a rushed performative draft and insisted it be better that's leadership that's why I'm
still here still Jewish still loud and still leading and tonight I will be voting yes not because I was threatened not because someone called me Queen Esther and tried to bully me to get in line and not because I was given permission on how to vote and certainly not because some people who erased my name from Jewish leadership decided that
they get to define who's Jewish enough to be part of this community so no I won't stop doing the right thing no I won't stop talking about anti-semitism no I won't stop asking questions my name is Councilwoman Hillary Goldberg and I am Jewish i'm not going anywhere but I'm a
yes thank you council member um switching up the order today um well first of all I just want to thank everyone for coming out um I I walked into the room today thinking I
was really clear on all of the different points and then I I sit here and I'm like blown away at all of the the comments that were made um the intentions of this ordinance I think come from a really good place right we want to make sure that all of our residents feel safe um I'm concerned
though about the unintended consequences that this ordinance may have um there were a couple points made just logistically about the fact that the public has not had enough time to review the published revisions i know they were read out loud at the last meeting but they didn't see the published revisions and I think there would be some value to
seeing those published revisions there would be some value to having the constitutional lawyer here to answer the questions of the public um so if there's an opportunity to potentially wait um one more meeting to to allow that time I think it would be much appreciated i know we heard several residents ask for
this just to be to be tabled but more than that as I listen to everyone who spoke um be again the intentions of this ordinance are right but when you think about it beyond what we've seen in Teneki's last couple of months this will
impact so many other special events right and the reality is that requiring permits um all of this vague language um the breaking news exception which requires um uh discretion of just a few T-neck officials this will lead to
unintended bias and potential subjectivity and we don't know what the long-term impact will be what's going on now in 10 years what is it going to be that this may potentially um impact we should be focused on maintaining public safety and there are other ways to do
that i'm just really really concerned that we haven't thought this through about what the long-term impact of this may be i think the real goal is to keep residents safe that is the real goal um and not to impact uh the ability of of citizens to to protest so I I I would
ask my colleagues if possible if we can take take a little bit more time to allow folks to digest this and to bring in the constitutional lawyer and really think through about what the long-term impact of these changes might be and what the unintended consequences might
be thank you um I I I agree with what council member G mentioned regarding um the intentions of this ordinance that it comes from a good place you know um obviously if this was introduced two years ago or
introduced in a few months from now few years from now I'm not sure that we'd have the same response but the realities are that the last year and some change have identified some areas of need of improvement regarding our ordinance and
I think that we have a responsibility to con continuously protect our residents um protect our employees aka our police officers that are out there um trying to
maintain um ci you know order and at the same time create these reasonable safeguards uh I don't think anyone here is looking to shut up or silence protesters as it was said um I think we're just looking to take some lessons
learned and apply them um if if it's not going to pass tonight because it wasn't you know there's certain things that that still need to be done I will absolutely vote for it now or in the future um but I you know let's make it very clear nobody in this room invented
protesting in Tene all right it was here before the last year and a half and it will probably be here in the future but it is important that as we learn from different scenarios that we tweak to protect our residents and also
financially to protect our town we can't just be constant magnet for every single issue and every single you know from all over the country um or all over the world um but to me the most important is
um safety and uh reasonable safeguards so I am a yes for this ordinance whether it's today or in the future thank you Mary Cats deputy may Okay so I'm going to kind of start by saying that you know we just came off a
budget season um and um we all know we had a substantial increase in and in in our taxes um which was um really uh after a lot of uh soularching by you know all myself and all my colleagues um I I I really struggle with the fact that
we hire a subject matter expert a constitutional attorney and we can't get that person in front of um an open session i have a big problem with that and I've expressed that to our uh attorney our attorney tried to get him
as of yesterday um but today responded that he had some type of personal um event that he could not attend so the whole point that I'm making is that when we hire people these are taxpayers dollars and I think we owe an obligation
to our residents to bring those uh that person before the township so that they can understand this is a hot topic this is something we've been dealing with for over a year and a half um there are things that he said in close session
that I think our res residents should hear no less than two dozen people spoke about real estate sales whereas in the in the in close session we were told that that would not be covered in this
ordinance then in other words it would not stop protests against real estate sales okay but you know it's one thing to read it in a draft but it's another thing to be able to to interact with someone who is uh telling us that this
is his constitutional uh belief that that uh it does not in uh in any way in uh uh promote or restrict protest when it comes to real estate sales i am right now a no because I feel that it's
vitally important that we get this subject matter expert in front of the residents we have this person have an opportunity to to dispel a lot of the misinformation because there is a lot of misinformation we I we sat here for the
last hour and a half listening to things that the public thinks whereas our constitutional attorney says that that's not the case so I would en encourage my colleagues to table this until
uh our main date of the 6th or the 20th so that we would have an opportunity for the constitutional attorney to be present to answer and to refute most many of the comments that that were made thank you
so I I wasn't going to talk about any of the actual protests but but I just want to say um that there was a Neph Benefish event that was not a land use sale and there was a Zaka event that was not a land use sale and there were um the
biggest protest was probably at the Zaka event so we shouldn't um confuse confuse things um I want to thank Scott for all of his work on these ordinances over the last uh year plus uh he's been working
on these since then i want to thank Akiva Shapiro um for working on this and we included in the packet tonight not just the original ordinance that was on the books but the ordinance that uh we tried to uh have
council introduce at a later date um two meetings ago uh that we then brought to the constitutional attorney and he worked off of that and we included his um information to council that we then brought to close session at our last
meeting and I really want to give Scott kudos for choosing Mr scarinsky he was exactly what this council needed and if anybody has time and they want to review his words I'm sure most people didn't i certainly got caught up in all the language about the guns um it was it was
above my pay grade um but he spelled everything out to us constitutionally exactly as we needed and then he sat with us at our last meeting not to divulge um attorney client privilege but he sat with us for almost an hour and a half as we worked out for ourselves a
compromise that we could live with and that's why there were those four changes that we brought when we introduced the ordinance at the last meeting uh things that I I personally was more comfortable with 200 feet from a house of worship our colleagues were more comfortable
with 100 feet and so we went with the 100 ft i was more comfortable with 10 days to introduce um some people were more comfortable with 7 days and so we went with the the seven days uh for the permitting and and that's how we got to the ordinance that was introduced and
that's what we have here um the ordinance that hopefully we'll be voting on and approving tonight but um as far as constitutional attorneys go Mr skursy was uh incredibly knowledgeable and I don't think he we left the table until he had answered each and every one of
our questions and the attorney is there to answer our questions not to answer the questions of the public a um a he is not there to answer uh the questions of the public we're here to answer your questions if you have them um this
ordinance this time place and manner ordinance which is contentneutral is our job to introduce to protect the public and to protect our employees when it comes time for these protests which pop up we need to give our manager the tools
to manage these events we need to give our police chief and our officers the tools to manage these events we need to make sure that we're not wasting your money on and your your tax dollars and the tax dollars of dollars of our neighboring towns and police forces uh
the rapid deployment force when these events pop up CSS when they come out for these events we need to know what to expect when these protests are threatened when they come up when they end up on social media and that's what this does it requires a permit so that
we know how many people to expect and it gives guidelines for what is and isn't permitted it doesn't silence people it doesn't take away from their First Amendment rights it keeps our residents safe it keeps um the the employees safe
here and that's all that this does um it doesn't uh take away anybody's right to protest and I'm very comfortable with this the way it is it's an ordinance that can be changed if um we find that it's not working to standard these ordinances are working documents we're
working off of a a previous ordinance that can now be changed because of um constitutional law that's always changing so so we will do this i hope it'll pass tonight and we'll do this for now i would hate to table this and have to sit through more conversation like
this so I think this is a great start and I I loved that at the last meeting we uh unanimously introduced it i would love to see that from my colleagues tonight um are you going to speak Mr mayor want to speak for one minute yeah okay um I'm actually not going to speak
to the actual protest ordinance i'm going to speak to the fact that Tene always has a great does a great job finding a problem for every solution and it's always of the 30 or so people that spoke tonight we can push this off by a month by two months by three months those same people are going to not be in
favor those same people are going to be in favor it's our job to govern it's our job to lead it's not our job to delay and nothing's perfect but I believe this ordinance led by first our attorney then then backed up by an attorney that we've never met before who was the
constitutional attorney came made some tweaks made some edits was passed 7 nothing i'm looking forward to having the roll call read with that move I'll make a motion to approve both ordinances 18 of 2025 and 20 of 2025
second by Mayor Schwarz second by Deputy Mayor councilwoman Goldberg yes counciloman Pagan yes to both councilwoman G I have to say no because when you think about laws like voter suppression laws that are absolutely constitutional and
exist across the country they have unintended consequences and I think these will will do the same um there are other ways that we can protect public safety and so it's going to be a no for me and Hard Graves Avenue public safety also number 18 that's number 18 yeah yes
the hard grave sorry oh good thank you Councilman Catz yes to both deputy Mayor Belchure uh yes to 18 um Harking uh no to ordinance 20 um I feel that you know we have a rich history of of um
being able to um explore uh constitutional law and it's vital that we get it right that we don't uh approve something that we know has issues and uh
may be faced with amendments um I think that uh my my answer is a no on this thank you Deputy Mayor deputy Mayor Oregon yes to both mayor Schwarz yes to both both adopted thank you very much Mr clerk now to public um good and welfare
three minutes open to anything any topic whatsoever is there anybody in the room that would like to speak mr cruz howard Rose 45-year resident in Tene former trustee on the board of education for nine years
former planning board member for 17 years former financial advisory board member and several other areas as well i find the vote that was just taken to be unfortunate because I think that
you've truly diminished the rights of the residents of Tene and that includes all of you and the main part that I find odious is requiring a permit because what you're doing is you're outlawing
spontaneous demonstration and that's wrong thank you thank you Mr rose mr vasi Mr balloon you're next mark Vatzky Tak resident I just wanted to mentioned here if it hasn't already
been made that tomorrow midday afternoon there's a demonstration about No there's a meeting about traffic safety at the at the chestnut class 1 p.m street smart kickoff yes and I just wish the
people that are listening would would take the opportunity to go there and learn because you know without all with all these other questions people are going to hurt get hurt tomorrow there's going to be accidents tomorrow there's going to be damage tomorrow and it's our responsibility to give people some tools
so they can minimize that people are going to get hurt thank you Mr baski mr bler yeah it's a uh a Berliner it's a shame that it's during the day i'd love to be there unfortunately I work i can't be in town at 1 p.m you know on behalf of all my fellow residents who always stand up
for the environment I unfortunately am not on the environmental commission i am not on the Shade Tree Advisory Board but happy Earth everyone and as we are bookended by both Arbor Day observed in Colorado this past weekend and Arbor
Day as a federal holiday and celebrated across the country this coming weekend let's continue to support our open space and recreation thank you thank you Mr berlin mr program paula Regoven um I want to announce that tomorrow there will be on on the same
topic uh hands off our planet it's a a town hall that's going to be at uh Bergenfield Public Library from 7 to 8:30 tomorrow uh confronting the climate crisis um there'll be a portion of that
about the climate super fund act and about some of the the drastic Thursday I'm sorry it's Thursday night not tomorrow um at the library April 24th thank you um you know questions about the the massive cutbacks
in in personnel um regulations and so on um about about our environment so please come to that i have uh flyers with uh details for signing up um I was very disturbed i I'd like to thank Councilwoman Belchure and G for their
for their uh standing up for the public whatever our positions are on on the political issues um I heard a council person say "We're not here to answer the questions of the
public." I I actually thought that's why we're here that we raise questions during an ordinance discussion that's what we do um there
was we hired our tax money was used to hire an attorney a constitutional attorney who knows more than than all of us in this room probably about constitutional issues we have that's I thought the purpose of hiring this
person and the purpose of an ordinance hearing um I'm inqu I'd like to inquire what actually happened in the closed session i'm very puzzled by it and why what happened in the closed session did
not come out tonight in in um in the discussion it's it's rather troubling uh I want to go back to Lee Zeldon if Lee Zeldon the EPA administrator were were to speak at a church or synagogue or
mosque here in Tene and we found out a group found out like my group that's you know we're all into the environmental stuff we found out the day before we would not be qualified to get a permit for a
demonstration the event might be held in a church or synagogue or a mosque and we wouldn't be it it might be covered it might be covered by this ordinance and we wouldn't be able to
protest but if it were if it were not if it were just a rental of the space would we be covered would we be allowed to have a demonstration it's quite quite these are important questions that need to be addressed
anybody else would like to speak mr maxine in Hi good evening good evening maxine Angel Tene resident i wanted to take a moment to thank um a number of our town employees
who came through in such a huge way for a group of fifth grade boys town manager clerk department of public works and the wreck department the um baseball fields have some issues with the lights and the grass is too wet for the trucks to get
out there to to make the repairs and right before a game that the TAK travel team was hosting um Emerson I reached out because I knew that the lights were not working and they would have to call the game would not we would not be able to host and I get a call within minutes
and Abraham from the recck department on his day off came to meet me to show me how to use the light so the boys could play and I just wanted to publicly thank you for coming through for these boys and if you know anything about fifth grade boys when they're happy um it it's
was really thrilling and they won really big over Emerson so thank you so much for that um I think that for all that you have to do on a daily basis it's really important that our residents know how much you do to help um to help our our kids so thank you and all of the
workers who who made everything happen and then I want to also um I know that you're working really hard on the budget and I um have been following this and I want to thank you the entire council for making this effort to get this right um
I know that there's so much division but I I do see that you're working um collaboratively because we're looking at like the biggest tax increase um and I think that if we can make sure that
we're using this the bonds correctly and doing everything correctly and that the commitment so many of you have made to accountability if you continue with that I think we're going to get this right so thank you thank you for that i I hope that we can get to the other side of
this and that um we understand that there will be tax increases um hopefully not huge ones something that we can absorb but thank you for your commitment to accountability and to the fiduciary responsibility you have to our residents so thank you and have a good night thank
you very much Miss Angel anybody else would like to speak um hello i'm disappointed to see that one of the council members has left because um I he mentioned before that Tene can't
be the focal point of every issue that happens across the country or in the world but I'd like to ask why not why not why not be proud to govern a town in which its residents passionately speak up for issues that they find important you want Tene to go down as a
place that supports genocide fine but all this ordinance does is criminalize people who want to partake in their constitutional right to assemble and like one resident here mentioned before protests by nature are spontaneous because they're usually in response to
an emergent or ongoing crisis the council members on this deis who voted for this ordinance do so with clear anti-Palestinian undertones you did not vote with all town residents in mind because you hold biases that you refuse to acknowledge
within yourselves this is a shameful day it's a shameful day for the township of Tene as was the last 18 months of most of this council loudly supporting the murder of entire neighborhoods in Palestine and I'm really disappointed but I'm not surprised
and I'll reiterate what I said before residents of Tene will continue to stand by the Palestinian people until Palestine is free good night thank you anybody else m is that a hand i see a hand mr capital thank you Mr mayor council members Keith
Kaplan Tene Resident the First Amendment is a precious thing if only for the reason that it protects a whole lot that as a member of the public said we dislike if it's not for the people you dislike it's for no one that's
absolutely correct it lets you lie like Paula Ragavan did when she got up here and said a person said "You're not here to answer questions." It's not true that's not what the mayor said what the mayor said was an absolutely true statement that lawyers hired to advise
the council are hired for that to advise the council if there are questions from the public that's not what the lawyer is hired to do the client of the lawyer is the council in fact he's not allowed to give his vice individually out to the
public they had to vote as a council to release that report and if you have questions it's for the council members the people we vote for the people that get a vote on the deis to answer the questions we have you're allowed to lie paul is allowed to
come up here and lie to the public and and that is what the first amendment allows in fact it's not a personal attack it's a statement on the first amendment and as members of the public said we need to
protect the first amendment the first amendment as the Supreme Court and the appellet division recently ruled in New Jersey protects calls to violence in NAACP v clayborn which the New Jersey appellet division recently upheld in a
case said very clearly you can call for violence in the NAACP case they said "Anyone who goes to the racist stores we're gonna break your neck." If I stood up here and said "Anyone who espouses
the hate that the kind of rhetoric Rich Seagull espouses you should break their neck." It would be protected speech and he himself said we should protect that think about how your actions how your
rhetoric and what you claim you are defending actually resonates around this council we have a council member sitting on the deis who said that their child heard the n-word in class and brought it up because it was worthy of attention
and yet when you have an ordinance that protects people calling for the death of the families of multiple council members sitting on the deis votes no you have a council member sitting on the deis that
rallied people to prevent a Jewish organization from buying a building in the northeast to build a high school and when it comes time to defending organizations being able to operate freely without impunity votes
no the First Amendment says I'm allowed to stand here and call you out it's a shame I have to thank you Mr capital anybody else in chambers like to speak mr clerk over to
you sir we have Sheranne you're free to unmute three minutes or whenever you're ready yes hi Sher Han Eid long lifelong T-neck resident um I just to be clear and I'd like an answer if possible from the
council members we had a gentleman um comment on the the ordinance who basically said "We're all here benefiting from the fruits of colonization and if you don't like it you may as well either be comfortable
with uh your uh be comfortable with that or go back to where you came from essentially is what he said um and and that's okay right that's not looked at as a personal attack on a
community that's protected speech but when we say we are looking for a free Palestine and justice for all who live on that land that's wrong and that's that's a terroristic wording um we just had another community member stand up
there and personally attack uh another community member in front of you all and that was okay so I'm just it's it's clear that the bias is here for whose freedom of speech is being protected and
whose is not thank you so much i have Amanda please state your name for the record hi my name is Amanda um Tina resident and yeah just wanted to echo some of the
sentiments state your name yes I did i did it's also on the screen it's my name is Amanda um what's your last name please i actually will just keep it to Amanda but thanks for asking so I also wanted
to just echo the um last name is that in the code of you can acquire okay use your last name or disconnect her if she's not conf her last name please call the next person amanda do you want to give your last name i do not feel safe giving my last name
great awesome we have Margaret Baker can you hear me loud and clear we have three minutes okay margaret Baker urban teen resident
i'm calling in regards to the traffic out here on Decar i've been speaking about it for years it is getting worse
the new building is open and now you have residents of that building parking on Decar Avenue there's a sign out there that
says no parking except the weekends so now I'm assuming there's parking for visitors and the residents under the building it is causing a problem out
here it's already a racetrack and then you put cars parked on Decator which is opposite the three residents driveways we live out here they
park across the street from our driveways we are having hell to get out of our own driveways because they're parked there something has to be
done that's another problem that's added to the one you already had now they're beginning to park on Decator overnight well I've been out here 40
years and I haven't been allowed to do that so uh I would appreciate if someone from the traffic department
or maybe you even try a a someone that does traffic and can explain this or come up with a solution because undoubtedly this wasn't included when
you decided to build this building and it's causing a problem i will not live out here and have to blow my horn to get out of my driveway no
way so I have called already about the parking daytime parking on the street overnight parking blocking our driveways for us to get out of our yards so I
really would appreciate someone coming and checking out the situation thank you Miss Baker we have Debbie who's listening is this Deborah Bllyber again yes it is hi can you hear me hi good evening i
just want to say thank you very much to those who passed the ordinance all I wanted was to make sure that it was constitutionally sound and that it didn't open us up to what it seems like one caller in was trying to threaten anyway um let's get to the budget
because I think that's what we need to actually start talking about town business and we need to look at the budget and I appreciate that i think it's been moved mostly from today and that you're going to like take a really good look because yes there's going to be an increase i think we're all kind of fully aware of that i'm used to that
with the board of education not so much with the council so we've got to brace ourselves however um I think it is really important that is there's a very long hard look you fresh eyes on it looking at it and making sure that we aren't double bonding things that
everything is in order so that making sure that the town is fiduciarially responsible i don't know anyway so that's all I'm saying is that can we just make sure that we are taking a very close look at our numbers so that it's not too much of a shock to
our town um constituents and again I want to actually back up what Keith said because he no one said that the council isn't there to answer questions it was literally the lawyer wasn't there to answer questions i heard that and I can barely hear half the stuff so on and I'm
on a boom so let's not start with misinformation again please let's keep it honest that's all I want is to keep it honest and transparent anyway tonight was very enlightening have a good one guys thank you very much we have Alan S
free to unmute allan whoops now can you hear me yes yeah three minutes uh Alan Son calling from gate E9 at Bengurian airport uh on my way back to Tene i wanted to thank this council for passing ordinance 20 uh regarding the protest
ordinance which is a distinct improvement over the original ordinance that was proposed i think that seeing Donald's report demonstrates the scope and nature of the flaws in the original ordinance which was patently unconstitutional
i think that the or that Donald Skincy's report says clearly that that original version was a piece of crap he just does it with a lot more words and with the documentation and constitutional law uh to demonstrate that fact it disappoints
me that it was not possible to fix this and do this right uh to get it passed with seven votes to get it introduced as a correct constitutional ordinance and to do that the first time why did it take so much jabbering so much fighting
in close session why did it take uh introducing something that was patently unconstitutional that it required an effort to table it that it required an effort to hire a constitutional attorney who could provide the expertise in constitutional law and municipal law
that was necessary uh to produce that ordinance that's appropriate and that passed tonight it is disappointing that this did not pass with all seven votes it is disappointing that there was not enough time and effort uh over these past couple of months to address all of the issues and all of the concerns of
all seven council members but it is due uh to and appropriate to thank those who actually did the work to fix a fundamentally flawed ordinance one that did not have the support of the public one that did not have the support of the attorney who refused to indicate whether
the previous version was constitutional because plain and simple it was not this is a drastic improvement and all you had to do was look from the start uh why jogging groups were ever included um and why anybody would think jogging groups should have been included even if it had
been in the structure of the former special events ordinance this is something that is necessary for Tene i hope that will be applied fairly that will not have selective enforcement uh that all those who are violating uh any
of these provisions uh are uh dealt with appropriately and are that there is no selective enforcement that there are no 14th amendment uh issues of equal protection and I hope that this ordinance will help address some of those issues even if it's not possible for it to solve all of them once and for
all i wanted to thank those who pushed this forward and I want to thank those for for making all the changes that were necessary uh to get this passed and to get this done for the sake of the people of Tene and again it shows who gets things done and it shows who just tries
to shove shove shove things through thank those for who helped make it happen uh and again learn a lesson to those who did not thank you very much bye thank you very much Mr s mr brunitz hi my name is Caria Brahmos i spoke
earlier um I actually just wanted to you mind my addressing my first name Sheranne um and I didn't catch your last name i'm sorry but I did just want to clarify what it was that I said with without getting into who's right and who's wrong what I mentioned was that we are all I said everybody has the right
to say free Palestine my opinion is not relevant i also said at the same time that we are all living on occupied territory so if we're going to throw around the phrase occupied territory I'm just asking for honesty that we should acknowledge between the Atlantic and the
Pacific is occupied territory it was taken by well by killing the folks who are here um Cyprus is occupied territory kashmir is occupied territory if you want to throw around words like partition we'd have to say India and
Pakistan were partitioned millions and millions of people had to move from point A to point B muslims had to go to one side hindus had to go to the other side it was an ugly and sufferingfilled process i've spoken to people tell me about their grandparents they remember
stepping over bodies it was horrific that happened whether it was good or bad to single out what's happening in the Middle East as if it is a suener situation is just false uh it's ignoring other facts again we'll all come to
different conclusions but to pretend that those other things didn't happen um again whether it's Greece or Cyprus how about occupied Western Sahara that doesn't get a lot of time in the press all of those things have to be part of the conversation again we may come to different conclusions but it's
disingenuous to ignore history thank you thank you Mr bowman seeing no other hands good welfare is now closed council Goldberg I'm going to wave yep um so I just want to talk a little bit about the ordinance that passed today
um laws in the US even when not explicitly discriminatory have often unintentionally harmed historically marginalized communities by failing to account for systemic inequalities and lived realities for example housing policies
like redlinining and urban renewal displaced black families and limited access to wealthb buildinging opportunities you can see that right here in Tene where we have neighborhoods that are still very fairly segregated by race we've also seen ostensibly
raceneutral drug sentencing laws that disproportionately impacted communities of color due to biased enforcement and socioeconomic disparities similarly voter ID laws and poll closures framed as security measures have disproportionately burdened low-income and minority voters who face more
obstacles in obtaining identification or accessing polling places these unintended consequences reinforce cycles of disadvantage and inclusion even when the laws themselves are written in neutral terms so why do I share that this this today we sitting
here on the day is is there really we have all been marginalized and suffered oppression we all have but the reality is the systems of oppression that we face and operate in this country are very different black Americans and people of color in this country often
face more constant visible and systemic marginalization rooted in America's very foundation we can't help Denise and I be more conscious of the potential of unintended consequence consequences on the decisions that we make um it's not
about not uh wanting to be against anti-semitism of our brothers and Jewish brothers and sisters here in Tene of course we want to keep our residents safe but we have a very different lived experience and we know that the ch the decisions that we make have long-term consequences that we can't even think
about what those might be today and that's the reason I voted the way I did it's not that I don't care about my fellow brothers and sisters here in Tene you brought up my the situation that my son had at school for what reason i don't know we all have faced discrimination and it's not about comparing what I've
faced and what my children face to what you've faced we want to keep us all safe but we want to be smart about the decisions that we make and we want to acknowledge the lived experiences of all of us of all of us thank you thank you Councilman G council
Go she was Did you want to say something no I'm good mcgill before in terms of um the importance of um the voice um our residents hearing our residents um I will always heir on the
side of of our residents supporting what I feel is in the uh the best interest collectively uh interpreting um ordinances interpreting what our attorneys uh advise us about but uh there are things
that we lived experiences that we we understand and we we want to um as as a black woman want to want to speak up about and if I see injustices I speak toward those injustices when I see things that are not right I speak toward those things um I I think about other
people not just about you know it it how it just impacts my community uh we're we're living in very interesting times when you can see people being snatched off the street um and um in in prison without due process so when I see areas
that um potentially is is uh very challenging and gray areas um it may it causes me to speak up it it really mandates that I speak up as as a elected official so I just want you to know the reason why I I vote the way I I vote is
not be uh because I I want to of course see my uh my neighbors safe i want all my neighbors to feel safe i want all my neighbors to feel that they are secure in their homes and in their businesses but I will always speak up when I see um
any areas of injustice or potential injustice or inequity and I I uh thank you all for coming out tonight thank you very much Deputy Belure um so I I'll never know what it is like to be a a black woman and I will always
try to listen to you but we're trying to tell you something now and we're going through something that you can't understand but you can only listen to and I am so grateful that Councilwoman G went to see October 8th and I'm so grateful that Dr spencer went to see
October 8th and I think it's either still playing on Cedar Lane Deputy Mayor Belchure or it may be coming to Netflix but there's something that our our children are going through in college and there's something that we're going through with protests that um has not
happened before and it's been going on for a year and it would be wonderful if you could um see it if you have the time um um Mrs manager if we could ask the police to drive by Alfred and Decatur
and just see i don't think there's any parking allowed there ever so uh if people are starting to leave their cars there if we could start to ticket thanks thank you very much uh Jeffy Morgan I'll I'll be brief yes uh Mr speaker um I'll drive by Decar tonight i'll also call
the police if I see cars parked there please at any time if you see any illegal parking please call the scene police at 20118372600 you can also call me as well uh 917902933 lastly to Mr s's comment about rushing things through you're right that that did come out did not appropriately
come out of my mouth what I meant to say was that we're not going to get a perfect ordinance because no one will ever agree in the audience and from our lawyers or anyone will ever agree on every single word and that's why I'm thankful that we were able to put it up for second vote tonight and vote on it
in its form which was endorsed by our constitutional attorney um with that uh before we go on to the rest of the meeting Mr attorney did you have anything else you wanted to say i did thank you Madam Speaker so uh obviously there's been lots of discussion about the ordinance both tonight and previously I really wanted to be clear
that this ordinance does not stop anybody from protesting whatever it is that they want to protest what the ordinance does is regulate when and where that protests happen among other different kinds of special events really not just limit just protests there are
lots of other kinds of events that that are that are covered by this as well if you want to protest outside a police station you can do that you just need to be at least be at least 100 feet away you want to protest outside of a house of worship you can do that you need to be you just need to be at least 100 feet
away if there is a related event happening within within that location if not then you're entitled to to protest immediately outside of the property uh you want to protest a property property sale event go for it if you want to protest Lee Zelden uh speaking go for it
uh this this ordinance does not limit your ability to do that along those lines I want to clarify that just because an event is being held in a religious establishment that does not It is a necessarily a religious event and given the same distance buff buffer
under the ordinance having a birthday party at a synagogue is not the same thing as having bar mitzvah you're but either way regardless of what the what the event is you're still entitled to protest and the ordinance doesn't change that what this ordinance does do is it gives us the township the ability to ensure that everybody else's rights and
safety are respected as well last thing I wanted to say is uh this came up a number of times uh about being of the protest in response to breaking news spontaneous protests and I want to be very clear that this type of protest is explicitly permitted under the ordinance
uh under the ordinance built in a specific carveout for these types of uh spontaneous events to the normal peritting process it's under section 31B8 uh of the ordinance you can see it on on page 21 of the the agenda packet and
what it does is it it essentially allows uh that the the seven business day period permits to be waved if you're uh protesting in response to some sort of breaking event some sort of break even breaking news um I would strongly encourage all members of public who have
questions about this i know there obviously a lot to read the ordinance uh themselves their own conclusions obviously ask can continue asking questions about it thank you Mr mayor thank you very much Mr attorney with that I'm going to turn it over to the clerk for your favorite part of the meeting yes mayor this
evening we have two sets of minutes resol only a few resolutions five resolutions 126 to 138-2025 and the bill list in the amount of [Music]
15,237,591.80 mayor and count mr mayor I just need to pull the bills list yes excellent with that said I'll make a motion to approve the raffles the minutes and all the resolutions and not build us at this time second roll call
please councilwoman Goldberg yes to all counciloman Gan yes councilman G yes councilman Catz abstension on the bills list if there is and uh we pulled it okay and
1362025 resolution you're abstaining from 136 yes you got it and we have Debbie Mayor Belchure yes to all debbie Mayor Oregon yes mayor Schwarz yes counciloman Goldberg the
bill this is yours so really really quickly I was just confirming with manager spoke to Scott spoke to Issa actually it affects his budget the Mado or some of the Mado invoices are hitting him for the attendant at the the
meetings and the budget move to building um so it's your department head so I'm going to let you do it and then he's confirmed in writing that ANJ which is hitting Doug's budget should be moved to Engineering Environmental Commission and
I'm still not fully clear on this last one but I'm going to leave it alone and do you have a motion oh I want to make sure I want Scott to weigh in and say his budget first so uh for Mr vado I know that there are certain items of his uh of the of his
expenses that are supposed to be charged to the legal department's budget mainly things related to ongoing litigation right now we have uh two uh two lawsuits involving the board and that that he is uh that he's involved in and so those or
those should be hitting the legal budget there are other items I'll say his general attendance at board meetings respond to applications or dealing with applications those those I believe go to should be going to the building department budget i will uh I'm going to
confer with Issa and make sure that the appropriate ones are hitting the legal budget versus the building department budget and I'm sure if they're if any of them were marked incorrectly at least so do you want us to hold off on
those until you review them or just to do it done after i mean like I said you're the department of you I don't have a problem with the moving forward on at this point we I'm still going to I'm still going to review it anyway and we can make adjustments um through the through the journal entries after the
fact if we need to all right so then technically the only motion is to move an out of Doug's budget and into engineering environmental commission is that a second i need him vote or is that a ledger transaction we don't approve the ledgers
anyway we approve you can do either one i would say you see I do either one either the uh the council can direct the CFO to to make the to make the journal entry change or he can do it on his own he's not here so I don't know what I don't know what he said i just wasn't sure if we had we
made this motion before so I just don't know yeah so the council certainly can do it ab absolutely can do it it's just a question of I think of whether Not make your motion accordingly well there was a second from you Councilman Pagan yes sir counciloman Goldberg yes
councilman Pagan yes councilwoman G a motion it's to move the general ledger from legal to clerk from clerk to engineering yes councilman Catz yes deputy Mayor Belchure yes deputy Mayor Oregon yes
mayor Schwarz yes okay i'll entertain a motion for the bill's list please okay i'll make it I'll make a motion to approve the bills list second roll call please councilman Goldberg i'm going to abstain i'm still there's a
lot I'm still not clear on and I didn't have time to finish going through it all so I'm gonna So that is a no abstain abstain sorry councilman Pagan yes councilwoman G yes councilman Katz
abstain deputy Mayor Belchure yes deputy Mayor Oregon yes mayor Schwarz yes with no ordinances I'll enter to be entered uh to be read for introduction in a motion to adjurnn second second we're adjourned