HILLSDALE—Amendments over the mayor’s role in participating on standing committees, reporting on committee work, and getting the “last word” at every council meeting were approved, 5-1, at an often contentious Jan. 4 Borough Council reorganization meeting.
Ruocco has lost “ex-officio” status, no longer an automatic member of standing committees and in most cases is cut out of the loop on their meeting times, agendas, and actions.
Councilmembers said the new rules are aimed at giving themselves an equal voice, ensuring “more cohesiveness” on committees, and delivering “good government.”
To Mayor John Ruocco, it’s a “reckless” move meant as punishment and “can only be viewed as a tyranny of the majority.”
He said he would stay abreast of developments “by having more frequent meetings with the borough administrator and have regular one-on-one meetings with department heads.”
And he said he would work with the borough administrator “to ensure that I continue to be provided with all notices of meetings, agendas, reports and materials as he receives them from the council, but which will be denied to me.”
It’s the latest widening of a divide between Ruocco and the council, which holds the power to further restrict his power over policy and spending.
Councilman Zoltán Horváth, an ally of Ruocco’s, opposed the council bylaw changes, echoing many of Ruocco’s responses in his State of the Borough address.
Ruocco moderates meetings and discussion, but votes only in case of a council tie vote. He also can veto council ordinances, though the council can override him, as happened in 2021 over a redevelopment matter.
At the reorganization meeting, Republican State Sen. Holly Schepisi swore in Abby Lundy and John Escobar, who ran for reelection unopposed.
The council voted, 5-1, with Horváth opposed, to appoint Janetta Trochimiuk council president, replacing Lundy in the role. The council majority is composed of Trochimiuk, Lundy, Escobar, Frank Pizzella, and Anthony DeRosa.
All on the governing body are Republicans. They met again on Jan. 11, when the council agreed to look at options for a community center in a new light after cost estimates came in too high.
The council’s next meeting is set for Feb. 1.
‘Back to the drawing board’ on community center
At the Jan. 11 council meeting, Trochimiuk said the council originally planned to spend $10 million on a community center and turf field, and noted the $16 million estimate was “way higher than we had ever anticipated it to be.”
Trochimiuk said the Steering Committee would now consider “other possibilities here in town” such as the public library, parks, Stonybrook Swim Club, and other local indoor or outdoor assets that might allow the town to offer summer camp activities, basketball, and recreational opportunities.
“These thoughts are going back to DMR Architects in response to the $16 million estimate,” Trochimiuk said. She added, based on the $10 million budget, the council would “sort of rethink how we’re going to do this. Nothing’s been presented [to council and residents] because there isn’t anything to present.
She said plans were “going back to the drawing board…We’re kind of in the beginning of how we’re going to move this forward,” Trochimiuk noted.
On Jan. 12, Lundy told Pascack Press, “We will discuss utilizing current assets and the feasibility of looking at this [$10 million] capital project in phases and three components, those phases being a turf field, a space for seniors and a recreational community space.”
She added, “We will seek to gather DMR’s opinions and then query the [mayor-appointed] citizens advisory committee to best understand their collective wants and needs and how we can propose working them into a cohesive plan within our budget.”
Praise for volunteers
In his State of the Borough Address, Ruocco spoke about a wide range of borough matters, looking back at a challenging 2021 and looking ahead to goals.
He led by thanking “all our borough employees, volunteers, professionals and elected officials who gave so much of their time to ensure that the essential services of local government continued throughout 2021, despite the persistent pandemic.”
But, he said proposed council bylaw changes, soon adopted, “go further than hampering the information flow to the mayor. They presume to usurp the mayor’s prerogative as the legally designated presider over all council meetings and mandate how he is to conduct the ‘last go-round’ speaking session at the end of each meeting.”
He added, “Considering that Hillsdale — unlike some towns in the valley — has a form of borough government called ‘weak mayor, strong council,’ and that existing state law therefore places tight limits on what a borough mayor can do, the efforts to further restrict the mayor can only be viewed as a tyranny of the majority.”
And he said, “All these restrictions are intended to tie the mayor’s hands and prevent him from performing what other mayors around the state routinely do. The proposed bylaws appear to be punishment for a mayor who has spoken up on behalf of transparency and professional management within the permissible boundaries of the law when he sensed things going wrong. And make no mistake, they have gone wrong and residents see it.”
Ruocco asked, “Why would some council members vote for such reckless changes that reflect insecurity and defensiveness, when council members themselves already control by statute virtually all the levers of power in the borough?”
(After an early version of this story appeared online, Lundy answers this question in Letters, this issue, Page 2.)
At the reorganization meeting, Horváth said he was not informed of any meetings for the changes and that they were “reprehensible.”
Ruocco said this was all done because council did not want him speaking out and continuing his call for transparency in local government.
He recently riled council majority members by releasing the nearly $16 million estimate prepared by DMR Architects on a community center and turf field under discussion by a mayor-appointed temporary Steering Committee.
Ruocco learned the estimate while he participated as an ex-officio member on the Steering Committee, replacing Horváth, who was unable to attend.
While committee members said they had agreed to withhold the estimate’s public release until the Dec. 14, 2021 council meeting, Ruocco didn’t agree, and released it during his mayor’s report on Dec. 7. (See “$16M for community center, turf field? Mayor releases estimate ahead of council’s plan, drawing members’ ire” Pascack Press, Dec. 21, 2021.)
Moreover, Ruocco has criticized Steering Committee members for not consulting a mayor-appointed citizens advisory committee that he said should serve as a “focus group,” similar to how the Pascack Valley Regional High School District is conducting its superintendent search process.
Council bylaw amendments bar Ruocco from filling in on a committee until all other council members have been contacted and offered the chance should another council member not be able to make a scheduled meeting.
Most members said they did not like Ruocco always getting a last say at council meetings. Ruocco often held forth and generally did not entertain rebuttals from council members he frequently criticized over their positions and an alleged lack of transparency.
Lundy noted that the bylaw changes were simply “good government” by trying to have three voting members attend a committee meeting, adding that Ruocco “still has his bully pulpit as mayor.”
Ruocco expounded on his views in a letter to the editor in the Jan. 10 Pascack Press.