A few of our members went over to the Township Committee meeting this evening at exactly the time scheduled for the public comment period, but were told the Committee was in closed session, and that they would not be allowed to speak because they did not come at the beginning of the meeting, 45 minutes earlier, and sit through patiently waiting their turn. They were going to the Committee simply to let them know that they were planning to come and speak to them next week about the Highlands issue. But before they could get this out, Mayor John Carpenter told them to “come back next week” if they wanted to speak.

Talk about the quality of communication! Instead of just having a civilized conversation, there is a sort of magisterial behavior that reminds one of the court in Alice in Wonderland. When one of our members asked why they could not speak at the time scheduled for public comment, she was told that the Committee could just change the rules whenever it wanted to. No wonder there’s so little room for them to listen to anyone else, to hear anything except each other’s exalted opinions.

Earlier in the evening, the Democratic meeting had heard an hour-long presentation from Elliott Ruga and Mark Zakutansky of the Highlands Coalition about the benefits of opting into the Regional Master Plan. Virtually everything that the Township Committee apparently believes about the Highlands option appears to be false. It’s true that the Highlands Council is trying to coax the towns within the Planning Area to opt into the Plan by deferring their COAH obligation for a year, and potentially relieving them of any obligation whatsoever. But the environmental urgency of protecting the Highlands from further depletion of its aquifers, which supply water to 5.4 million people, is equally real.

If the township is not going to indicate a non-binding “intent to opt-in,” then it must file its COAH plan by December 31. This presumes that it has a COAH plan. If so, we’d like to hear about it. We think the town was simply trying to avoid its fair share by filing a law suit, and has been trying to concoct improbable schemes to “meet” its obligations; when it reality it could use the Highlands Preservation Act as a shield against virtually all further development, and turn its attention instead to remediating the ecosystem on which everyone depends. “Suburbia,” as we know it today, is completely unsustainable. We need to reorganize ourselves and our communities around fundamentally different principles, and the Highlands Plan represents one element of this.

The Township Committee, however, seems driven by very short term and short-sighted thinking. It’s not clear that it has a real vision, or that it is at all interested in engaging its citizens in the processes of self-government. Instead, most of the decisions appear to be made behind the scenes, obscurely recorded, and enacted in a haphazard manner. But since there’s not much for our affluent and inattentive residents to care about, the Committee can do pretty much whatever it wants – it can make up its own rules – as long as it does not arouse public opinion. But if public opinion cares at all about both the environment and fairness – which it does – it is at some point going to take notice of the fact that its government is going in the wrong direction, and insist that it change course.

- Jonathan Cloud, December 17, 2008