Posted on 08/27/2019 5:13:36 PM PDT by Trump.Deplorable
Three members of Jackson Township boards dealing with development have tendered their resignations, following the release of recordings of their attendance at a meeting aimed at stopping the construction of a housing project geared towards Orthodox Jews.
Controversy began after an anonymous leak to local officials and media surfaced that Richard Egan, who was a member of Jackson’s Planning Board, and Sheldon Hofstein and Joseph Sullivan who served on its Zoning Board, were present at what was labeled as the town’s inaugural CUPON meeting. CUPON (Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods) has been active in New York’s Rockland County for some time, largely focusing on efforts to oppose the growth of the Orthodox community there.
The meeting was held two weeks ago at Jackson’s Miller Road Fire House and was reportedly attended by some 28 residents. Included on its written agenda was discussion of an upcoming Planning Board application for Jackson Trails, a development for more than 460 homes and a shul in an area of the town near the border with Manchester Township, far from the area of Jackson that borders Lakewood, and which is already home to several hundred Orthodox families.
Very brief clips of a recording of the meeting, released through the Lakewood Scoop, feature the three men acknowledging that their presence at the gathering must be kept secret.
“We’re not supposed to be here,” Mr. Hofstein said. “Nobody saw us.”
“We didn’t sign in, we’re neutral like invisible,” said Mr. Egan.
“We weren’t here,” said Mr. Sullivan.
A source who has listened to the entire audio recording but requested anonymity, told Hamodia that all three took an active part in conversations strategizing to block Jackson Trails’ application.
The planning meeting held four days later was attended by some 175 residents. Just before it commenced, Gregory McGuckin, who serves as an attorney for Jackson as well as being its assemblyman, approached Mr. Egan and asked that he recuse himself from taking part in the meeting.
Presumably under pressure from town officials that their continued participation would throw a further pall over the town’s zoning and planning decisions, Mr. Egan and Mr. Sullivan submitted their resignations this past Friday, and Mr. Hofstein added his on Monday.
Robert Nixon, who serves as president of Jackson’s Town Council told Hamodia that he welcomed the resignations.
“Council was surprised and disappointed at the allegations made recently against members of our Planning and Zoning Boards and we support their decision to step down,” he said. “The focus of the Zoning and Planning Boards have always been, and must only be, on the law governing land use and Jackson’s Master Plan.”
Zoning Board appointments are made by the town council, and those to the Planning Board are made by the town’s Mayor, Michael Reina.
Jackson has struggled to keep its town boards staffed in recent years, following a series of scandals. Robert Burrows, a former Zoning Board member, has been the author of several online anti-Semitic tirades. In 2017, Larry Schuster was forced to resign after anti-Semitic and other offensive comments he made online were discovered, only weeks after Anthony Marano was forced from the board over an arrest for possession of illicit materials (Child Pornography) and resisting arrest.
At the time, members of the council called for more rigorous background checks to be made before admitting applicants to serve on town boards.
The recent resignations could complicate Jackson’s ongoing legal woes as well. In 2017, the town was sued by the Agudath Israel of America, which claimed that ordinances that banned the construction of new schools and eruvin were motivated by bias against the Orthodox community.
Officials had entered into arbitration, but negotiations stalled and a trove of emails revealed by a FOIL request between the mayor and council members seemed to reveal that talks were little more than a stalling tactic. The cases are currently moving forward.
Prior to the Agudah’s action, Jackson had been sued by Oros Bais Yaakov over the township’s denial of its application to build.
While Mr. Egan and Mr. Sullivan were appointed over the last year and a half, Mr. Hofstein has served for 11 years and was one of those who voted down the application.
Rabbi Avi Schnall, Agudath Israel’s New Jersey Director told Hamodia that the recent revelations are yet another step in strengthening accusations of a concerted effort to block Orthodox growth in Jackson.
“These incidents are further proof of the nefarious intentions of those sitting in the government of Jackson,” he said. “It shows a deep rooted problem that they are pursuing plans to keep Jews out and to have zoning and planning board members at a meeting on how to prevent a Jewish development from being built speaks volumes. Remember also, that these are positions appointed by the mayor and council to steer their agendas.”
Its something to laugh at for you but where I come from you can get whacked for making such an OBVIOUS mistake!!!
I’ve seen the movie 4,000 times!!
I’ll have go into nitwitness protection program!
Well you can’t come up here and hide. We got so many Italians in Toronto that we have two Little Italys not just one! Even Sophia Loren made a picture here with her son as director! And so many lakes to dump bodies it’ll make your head swim! :)
LOL
I didn’t know there were paesani in Toronto.
You do make good points about the big families and welfare. And that can be easily stopped. In fact a couple in Lakewood were making 1.3 million a year and were claiming welfare benefits... They got caught. However public facilities are just that, public. And the wire, is no big deal, those stupid wires are everywhere, especially in New York.
Personally I am not worried about the Jews, they don’t bother me. I have had business dealings with them, never had any issues. Everyone’s money is a green to me.
I think the issue is that they want to build a new community. Jackson Township has tons of land, tons of empty land and is about an hour or so away from NYC. It is about 100 square miles with a population of around 45,000 people.
This’ll give you an idea. When Italy wins the World Cup its like a national holiday.
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurants-g155019-c26-Toronto_Ontario.html
If Zoning was reasonable, you shouldn’t need a variance. Once should be needed in extreme cases like a large subdivision or shopping center. But should you need a variance for a house generator? A shed? A fence? A dog house? A sewing machine? Don’t laugh, these cases have came up in Jackson township.
However Jackson Township has the strictest zoning laws in the state and if not the country. Just about everything you can do to your property will need a Zoning permit. And some things will need a building permit, so you some cases you need a building permit, or a zoning permit or both. Two layers of fun loving bureaucratic government and twice as much fees for them to collect.
I am more convservative/libertarian in the respect to property rights, I believe the least amount of government is the better. I believe if I wanted to live in a restrictive community that controls everything you do, I would buy into those “HOAs”.
I also believe we should hold our property rights on the same level as gun rights, speech rights, life rights, etc. Because without one, we really don’t have any of the others....
I’d agree with you about the importance of property rights, but I’d also suggest that a modern suburb is a terrible bastardization of “private property.” You simply can’t take libertarian approach to this when you’re dealing with property that is serviced by public utilities and infrastructure that are constructed and maintained by the taxpayers. I would make the case that property barely qualifies as “private” if it does not accommodate any business activity and has no value without the public roadways that enable its occupants to drive somewhere else to work.
The Torah commands Israel to be “a people that dwells alone.” This command was given in the days of Moses and Joshua, as they were conquering the Promised Land. G-d commanded them to have nothing to do with the goyim worship of Pagan gods; in which orgies and child sacrifice were common. Holiness is essentially “set apartness”; G-d is holy because He is altogether unique, and far above Creation. So to be in a Covenant with Him is to be set apart as well. If you keep the Torah you will indeed be different: what you eat, what you do, where you go, and when you go. For 2000 years Jews have managed to maintain their identity by being faithful to the Torah. Their separateness is a mitzvah, a command. They have to do it. But they know that the United States of America has been a blessed Covenant nation; so there is a symbiotic relationship between fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Christians. Although their theologies differ, they both believe their common Scripture is True. So don’t be too hard on them; they’re doing the best they can. Who knows, you might just discover that they are really nice, honest, decent people.
Zoning variance for a sewing machine? Or add-on sewing ROOM?
Zoning variance for a sewing machine? Or add-on sewing ROOM?
It was a sewing machine that a polish lady received from her former employer when they closed the factory she worked in. She was a professional seamstress, I guess this was the machine she worked on. She set it up in her garage and would do work for people who knew her, I believe she made uniforms or something for the girl scouts, stuff like that, they would bring her the materials or whatever and she would make it. An on/off kinda thing, she never advertised nor had any signs out front of her house. She claims she never collected money from anyone.
The township was tipped off about this sewing machine when a local busy body with nothing better to do happened to notice a Orthodox Jewish woman bringing clothes to the polish lady’s garage. The busy body of course reported this outrageous crime to the Zoning Officer who then had someone stakeout her house to surveil people leaving or entering her garage. I believe after a few stakeouts they were not able to determine what she was up to. So the zoning officer basically knocked on her door and asked her what she was doing in the garage. She basically told him she was a retired seamstress and she had her sewing machine from work when it closed in her garage she would work on clothes or whatever her friends, family would bring her. Her house was next door to gas station and a strip mall was across the street, the street was a 4 lane avenue, lots of traffic and noise.
Basically she was charged, she went to the zoning board with a lawyer she hired, she lost and she ended up moving back to Poland to avoid any further criminal prosecution.
“Hey Louie, hows your mother?’’
Louie: “Who say’s I got a mother?’’
Go to any crime map and check the demographics. See if you have the acumen to make any association about race and crime. Call me a bigot all you want. Self preservation is more important than your left wing whites are bigots meme.
That has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about.
We were talking about, do the Orthodox Jews bring down property values. And my argument was that they don’t bring down the property values, it was the people fire selling their homes to get away from them because of their own personal bigotry who brought down property values. The same thing happened in cities and suburbs when black families moved into neighborhoods(I made a mistake) should have said 40s,50s,60s,70s.
What you are talking about is after white flight areas turned into ghettos, this happened when government created a welfare system that encourage single motherhood and broke up the black families, this program eventually encouraged unwed mothers, absent fathers, and created the problems, including crime of today. And plus the crack epidemic of the 80’s, and the continued drug war and of course street gangs to distribute those drugs we have the crime problems of today that plague inner city blacks.
The question is
How can any town legally stop it?
And is it worth fighting when the town is going to get sued, lose and cost millions of dollars in settlements and legal fees?
Remember, we live in the United States of America, not Soviet Russia where everything is planned and government approved.
The people who are willing to have children are going to get their way.
People who won’t replace their own culture are going to die out.
It’s not complicated.
Very good point
I made that point on one of the Facebook boards, that we need to out populate them, and the kooks accused me of hating the planet lol
The problem is not the faith, its the gaming of the system that aggravates lots of folks.
They master the system, corrupt the purposes,and use it against the country, to their exclusionary benefit.
When Muslims get better at it, it will be a problem multiplied a thousand fold.
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