Council restricts comment on redevelopment

I find it rude and disturbing that Mayor Adam Schneider and the City Council/Redevelopment Agency will now take discussions and debates on the redevelopment projects in Long Branch away from the proper forum.

Has opposition to the plans of these neighborhoods gotten too much for them to handle?

In the article of Jan. 20, Mayor Adam Schneider said the executive sessions typically scheduled for twice a month — before regular council sessions — were no longer an efficient way to discuss the process.

There just isn’t enough time to make real progress before the council members have to adjourn to attend the regular meeting, he said during Tuesday’s council meeting.

Many citizens are coming forward and expressing their concerns. Many do not want eminent domain to continue as a way for a developer to acquire their properties.

These people have a right to express their opinions and their concerns to the elected officials and to the potential developers who eventually will be taking their homes, against their will.

What is the mayor and the council afraid of? Could it be that City Council meetings are now being videotaped, and many of the citizens’ comments are now preserved outside the control of their censorship?

For the Long Branch Council to move these discussions out of the formal City Council meetings and into newly designed “special meetings” where public comment is restricted is a major failing of the redevelopment process and a disservice to the people they are supposed to be serving.

In a time when government, outside of Long Branch, is starting to open up and fully disclose to the citizens all that is going on, Mayor Schneider and the City Council go into special and executive meetings where the voice of the people will never be heard. Shame on them!

Kevin Brown

Long Branch