The mayor and council meeting of August 1, 2019 was an interesting meeting. Of course virtually no residents actually know what happened as few attended and there is still no live streaming of the meetings (beyond what is posted on Facebook), and what transpired might be why the council doesn’t want it out there. It was an interesting meeting with the mysterious, secretive appearance of Toll Brothers (in their premier appearance) and Boswell Engineering who actually took and answered questions.
However, that wasn’t the most interesting part. If you can, access a video of the meeting and watch the last 5 minutes. One resident has some thoughts.
After seeing the video recording of the town meeting a few nights ago, seeing how the Administrators treated the residents, which is a regular occurrence, somebody has to say something as apparently our free speech is under threat.
A few weeks ago a resident raised a question on a private Facebook group to do with if someone in the town was potentially on the take from the Toll Brothers, as there is all this evidence that Toll Brothers is doing something wrong but just about nothing is being done by the town. This was a question, hypothetical at that, and no accusations were made. Under the first amendment, this question is perfectly acceptable. While one may say that it was a loaded question, and may constitute as libel (a sub-section of defamation – although libel is generally a statement, not a question), first, this has been a question which has been in some residents minds for a while, and with all the evidence, it’s a valid question. It was not a statement, and libel is a defamatory statement – this was a thought-provoking question which has no hard evidence to back up.
It came to light in the recent town meeting that someone within this Facebook group is feeding information that occurs in a private group to individuals who are not in the group – a little spy? The first point is, this is a private group, not public and not in any way connected to the local government (which brings in other legal issues). Just because it’s private doesn’t mean that anything can be said, legally. If you make violent threats against another, and it was reported, legal actions could be taken. If there was serious forms of defamation, a good lawyer may be able to argue a strong case.
But, this was a hypothetical question, on a private page. Something to open peoples minds.
Robert Regan, the Upper Saddle River Borough attorney stated at the town meeting, that some kind of action would need to be taken against the person who made these comments – a trip to Hackensack to the Bergen County Prosecutors Office. And what is the cause for this legal action? Ego?
Well, sure enough, this resident woke up to the USR police and our local Detective at their door bright and early the next morning. There was no warrant, there was no verbal threat and there was no threat of being arrested – it was just to ask for any evidence to corroborate the ‘claim’ that people within the town are working with Toll Brothers. The police were doing their job, what they were asked to do. But who asked them? Based on previous statements, this order seems to have come from Regan – either directly or indirectly.
This is where is gets concerning.
How much money is spent when police officers are sent out? There are multiple cars, there’s gas and they aren’t available for other emergencies which may happen, or were needed on Rt17. The questions reportedly asked could have been done over the phone or with a single individual arriving at the house at a pre-determined time – not unannounced.
Based on this evidence (something clearly lacking on the other side of this situation), this is intimidation. What other reason would there be for a bunch of police officer to show up at the door of a resident just to ask a few normal questions? Just to show force and show that the town leaders are protected.
To any reasonable person this is an abuse of power.
There was no direct threat against the town. This was not defamation. There was clearly no evidence as it was a hypothetical question. Instead of politely addressing it and just saying ‘no, this is not the case, if you have evidence of such please bring it forward and it will be addressed’, free speech was met with a show of force.
Nothing says intimidation like sending out the authorities to upset residents and scare them into silence.
So this is a hypothetical statement based on the facts presented, as it seems that the town likes to add too much weight into statements made by residents, even though under the first amendment, you can pretty much say what you want. We live in a democracy for a reason – until one calls for violence, you are protected.
Is this particular post accusing someone of something? No.
Is there any hard evidence to prove that individuals in the town are in the pocket of Toll Brothers? No. Not yet.
Why is any of this being said? To get people in the town to think. Things are not lining up. There is no hard proof yet, but logically things aren’t making sense. Limited actions are being taken against Toll Brothers, town leaders are sending out the police to scare residents into silence, which is not the way things work.
Abusing power is unacceptable.
USR may think they have won this little skirmish with a resident but at what price?
Interesting perspective.
The question is Robert Reagan is an attorney and should be very conversant with the law. He is aware of what is, and is not, prosecutable and had to clearly be aware that no laws were broken and that as an issue this would not stand up in court – if it ever even got there. So, why then was he so willing to waste town tax dollars on a pointless exercise? Just to show power and that he can? There is clearly something very wrong here.