Is Perception Reality? You Decide

If perception is reality … than the Atlantic Highlands Mayor & Council is making it very clear they don’t think it’s important for local residents to attend municipal meetings.

And if perception is reality … they took at least one specific action to ensure interested residents have to make a choice between whether they would rather see a number of local youngsters be honored for their academics, talents and sports abilities, and maybe see and hear who’s interested on becoming a member of the board of education, or find out why an additional $367,000 is needed for the Hill Road drainage improvement or what’s in that $2.2 million bond anticipation note the Council plans on acting on.

Or maybe to meet the borough’s new borough administrator and see him in action.

The Atlantic Highlands Mayor & Borough Council meets regularly on the first and third Mondays of the month according to the resolution they adopted in January.

Well, actually, that regular first and third Monday meeting schedule isn’t really for the entire year; it only covers March, April, May, June and October, just five months of the year. There is only one meeting in the months of January, July, August, November and December, or five months a year. Then in February, because the ‘regular’ meeting night falls on President’s Day, a holiday, and in September when the first Monday of the month falls on Labor Day, another holiday, as it is every year, two meetings are switched to Wednesday nights.

So what if that happens to be the regular meeting night of the Henry Hudson Regional School Board of Education, the regional body that eats up the largest share of everybody’s tax dollar?

Apparently, again, if perception is reality, the borough council does not give a flying hoot that the two most important municipal meetings to local residents are planned specifically for the same night, because the Atlantic Highlands Mayor & Council does not want to have its meeting on a holiday.

For Highlands residents, it’s another serious problem. Henry Hudson Regional Board scheduled its regular meeting nights for the exact same night that Highlands Council has been holding their regular meetings for more than five years. So residents of that borough have to decide every month whether they want to hear what’s going on in town or what’s going in in their school district.

If perception is reality … it appears that neither the Hudson Board or the Atlantic Highlands governing body even cares whether its residents want to be at their meetings or be involved in person or on zoom, where that’s possible, since Henry Hudson doesn’t ever provide that, to participate in their meetings?

Not many people attend either borough council meetings or the board of education meetings. Even board meeting attendance has not increased noticeably even though there is only one, not three, boards of education any more.

So which is it.

Do people not attend meetings because it’s confusing when each is held and they have to seek them out?.

Is it because the meetings conflict and those who want to attend both simply can’t?

Or do people not attend meetings because their elected bodies don’t make it easy to remember schedules and attend?

On the other hand, is it intentional? The folks who do attend meetings are interested, are eager to learn, and do tend to ask a lot of questions.

Is it a perception that once in office, elected officials don’t really care what the people think?

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