Order, courtesy and respect are three necessary ingredients needed for a smooth and constructive municipal government meeting.
Yet all three are consistently absent in West Windsor.
Instead, West Windsor Council meetings are routinely marked with accusations and personal attacks from both the public and members of the council.
No matter what the topic, meeting after meeting, residents use public comment periods to criticize the administration.
Whether it’s threatening Business Administrator Bob Hary’s pension or accusing Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh as being a “part-time mayor,” these residents turn the constructive purpose of public comment into a blatant disrespect of the process that inevitably exceeds a three-minute speaking limit rule.
Many, if not most, comments go beyond five minutes and not even a timed buzzer nor Council President Kamal Khanna and his gavel can keep them in check.
This behavior cannot be allowed to continue.
There can’t be good government if the council’s own president continues to accept the ongoing impudence from those who interrupt him and tell him he needs to learn how to tell time.
There can’t be order if the council continues to violate Robert’s Rules of Order by peppering in a slew of interruptions and crass remarks toward the administration.
There can’t be respect if the council members continue to raise their voices, roll their eyes and get red in the cheeks when they hear comments and explanations that are not to their liking.
And there certainly can’t be unity when a political party line continues to divide the members into separate teams making the council appear to be a caricature of a nonpartisan governing body.
Whether by accusing the mayor of party politics at a forum hosted by the West Windsor Republican Club or trying to rally other members into passing or tabling certain resolutions these seemingly personal agendas have created a thick tension at these meetings that are anything but conducive to good government.
A town hall should not feel like a kindergarten classroom but that’s what it becomes when township Attorney Michael Herbert has to continue to break out Robert’s Rules in attempts to re-teach the definitions of procedure and propriety.
The council and the residents need to learn to listen, rediscover civility and act like adults. This would not only enhance the efficiency of these meetings, but would be to the benefit of all West Windsor residents.
