It is difficult to tell whether the Atlantic Highlands Planning Board wants to try to keep everything secret to entice interest and make me and others want to delve more into the actions they take, or whether they simply do not want residents and taxpayers to know everything they do at their public meetings.
You remember the planning board member who said publicly with no objections from anyone else … that people in one part of town shouldn’t have to know what somebody someplace else in town is doing with his property.
You remember this is the board that says if you’re interested you should come to a meeting in person, not have the opportunity to participate virtually … 21 century style.
You know this is the official body that doesn’t take advantage of that $17,000 plus expenditure for audio/visual equipment the governing body spent buying … although not yet using completely and perfectly, so that even those residents who can’t make meetings, for personal disability or other reasons, can still participate in the governance of their community.
Well, now the planners have printed their agenda for Thursday’s meeting which begins after the workshop meeting that starts at 7. The public can only talk during the workshop meeting, though, but if they are present for the regular meeting … they can listen.
The agenda explains that “Consistency Review, Ordinance 09-2022” is on the agenda.
Clear enough.
Honest enough.
Seems like a routine item on a routine agenda.
Until you research Ordinance 09-2022… or remember it was the ordinance that was introduced last month by the Mayor and Council and is set for a public hearing at their meeting next week.
Wouldn’t you think if the planners really wanted the folks to know what’s going on they would have mentioned what’s in 09-2022?
Wouldn’t you think more people would turn out for a meeting, 21st century style and in person, if it simply said: review and discussion on the question of CANNABIS BUSINESSES in Atlantic Highlands?
Because that 12 page ordinance is what it’s all about on Thursday’s planning board agenda.
It’s that kind of stuff that makes me think they really don’t want folks to know what they do with the power they have.
That’s on top of items not included on the agenda, like the one about whether they’ll have some kind of hybrid meetings ….
They talked about it in June, but took no action.
So now it’s July, and wouldn’t you think they would talk about it this month?
It is not on the agenda. Does that mean it’s pushed off again?
Back to cannabis, since by its very nature will have a major impact on the borough, its real estate, its schools, its businesses, its taxpayers. And all of that is now in the hands of the planning board, whether you know it or not.
Besides the law which now enables towns to consider six different kinds of businesses for cannabis, there’s another one that calls for the requirement the Land-Use Board, in the case of this borough, that’s the Planning Board, has to compare whether cannabis business can match up with the borough’s Master Plan.
So the planners have to read the proposed ordinance, discuss it, and decide, by vote, whether the allowances and restrictions of what the governing body is proposing fit in with the Master Plan or if they don’t.
If they do, the the public hearing scheduled for next week’s council meeting is a go… But if the planners make any changes, any at all, to what the borough is proposing, then they have to tell the governing body that, and poof, next week’s public hearing is off. So is the proposed ordinance.
The governing body then has to write their proposal all over again with the planning board changes, then have an introduction and public hearing on THAT proposed ordinance.
That isn’t the end of the planning board involvement with Cannabis business. The poor applicants who are looking to open up one of the kinds of cannabis business that would be permitted in town still have to go before this board with their own individual application since they will need a variance for the business and these are the folks who grant them.
Wouldn’t you think the agenda would say more than “Consistency Review, Ordinance 09-2022”???
Like it or not, Planning Board, it’s my guess there will be more than a few folks at your Thursday evening meeting.
Oh yeah… they have to be present. You don’t do virtual meetings that lets them be hear, see, and even be recognize to talk with that new expensive borough equipment.
