Judge rules Teaneck school board still not complying with July meeting notice order

TEANECK — A Superior Court judge has ruled that the township's Board of Education has not yet complied with a July order to amend its public notice practices.

The order by Judge Carol Novey Catuogno on Monday gives the board an additional 50 days to comply by retroactively amending its notices for the meetings of Dec. 21, 2023, Jan. 3, 2024, and Aug. 21, 2024. The judge denied the plaintiff's requests to void the actions of the Aug. 21 meeting or impose civil or administrative penalties against the defendants.

The complaint was filed against 11 current and former school board members with the Bergen County Superior Court of New Jersey by former Councilman Keith Kaplan,.

At issue is the requirement that school boards publish their meeting notices in two paid subscription newspapers. Newspapers distributed for free, including many North Jersey weeklies, do not qualify.

According to the New Jersey Press Association, newspapers must submit annual affidavits certifying their average net paid circulation to each municipality whose legal notices they are qualified to carry. The rate the newspaper can charge per line for the legal advertisement varies depending on the number of paid subscribers.

School board President Clara Williams and Vice President Kassandra Reyes criticized the charges at the Aug. 21 meeting, arguing in favor of website notices.

"We're also printing online," Reyes said. "Newspapers are kind of outdated, and those meetings were very well attended,"

Board attorney Steve Edelstein concurred on Monday, arguing that requiring a school district to publish its entire 40-page agenda "would not only fill or exceed the length of most average newspapers, but it would also be prohibitively expensive."

"The board's approach of making the entire agenda available on its website accomplishes the same public purpose at no cost," Edelstein said.

The Open Public Meetings Act requires all meeting notices to be:

• Posted in at least one public place reserved for public announcements.

• Published in two newspapers.

• Filed with the appropriate municipal or county clerk or the secretary of state if the public body has statewide authority.

• Mailed to any person upon request.

ETHICS COMPLAINT FILED Ethics complaint filed against current, former Teaneck school board members

The law specifies that any electronic notice must be used "in addition" to print newspaper notices, not in place of them.

"Every public body is required to submit an annual list of meetings by no later than Jan. 10," Kaplan said Monday. "Any board that notices this annual list does not need to notice an agenda in the newspaper for those meetings."

In addition, Kaplan said, "the Appellate Division in 2015 said an agenda does not need to include every document that is referred to in the agenda. The agenda can be as simple as a list or outline of things to be considered or done by a public body at a meeting."

Edelstein said Monday, "We will study the decision more closely, but among the options available are asking the court to reconsider its decision and asking the appellate court to review it."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Teaneck school board still not complying with meeting rule, judge says