After the meeting I followed up with the Mayor and Council with regard to their behavior toward Ms. Akiri and characterization of future PILOT agreements.
To the first point I wrote:
“Sai made clear that she was attending alone, speaking as a taxpayer and resident, was not speaking for the BOE and relying on publicly available information. She also asked the township attorney to identify the law or provision of the School Ethics Act that prevented her from asking the question. Instead of providing good counsel, the Attorney made a vague one-line reference to the State’s School Ethics Act.
To be perfectly clear: New Jersey School Ethics Commission guidance does not appear to support the position stated by Council members or their Attorney.”
And on the issue of PILOTs I wrote:
“As for Terrace II, Mr. Foster, you indicated that despite what is in writing for anyone to see, Terrace II is likely not going to be a PILOT. Instead of more vague and unclear references can you please provide clarity on why you believe this – it would be good to know that this will not be a PILOT but, as you can well understand, the public needs more than a one-line ‘I wouldn’t bet on it’ to have a clearer understanding.”
It should be noted that on several occasions during Ms. Akiri’s comments, members of the public had to ask the Council to ‘calm down’ during the meeting. You may not hear that on the published recording as outside comments are typically filtered out.
Councilmember Illis was the only member of the governing body to respond in the email exchange and stated that she never claimed Akiri had no right to speak, only that she felt it was inappropriate to discuss or answer questions from a Board of Education member about issues related to the BOE.
“It would be irresponsible for me, as a member of council in an open public meeting, to have answered the questions she asked,” Illis wrote.
Illis said the Council had received correspondence from the school district regarding future PILOT arrangements and that any Council position or action would be “communicated appropriately to the public and the district.”
“The council DID explain that there is no PILOT under consideration and when and if there is then our position or actions will be communicated,” Illis wrote.
The Terrace II redevelopment agreement, however, presents a more complicated picture.
The agreement does not approve a PILOT and does not establish the amount or terms of any payment. However, Section 10.3 expressly states that the redeveloper expects to apply for a tax exemption under New Jersey’s Long Term Tax Exemption Law.
“The Redeveloper expects to submit to the Township an application for tax exemption in accordance with the Long Term Tax Exemption Law and the terms of a Financial Agreement,” the agreement states.
If approved by the Council through an ordinance, the project would be exempt from conventional property taxation and the developer would instead make annual payments to the Township under a Financial Agreement.
More significantly, the agreement states that it is the intention of both parties that the redevelopment agreement be contingent upon the Township approving the tax-exemption application, the Council adopting an ordinance approving the Financial Agreement and the Township and developer executing that agreement.
If the Financial Agreement is not executed within 120 days of the redevelopment agreement’s effective date, unless both parties agree to an extension, the redevelopment agreement and the developer’s designation as redeveloper automatically terminate.
The agreement therefore does not establish that a PILOT has been finally approved. It does, however, show that a PILOT was expressly contemplated as part of the Terrace II arrangement and was not merely an unsupported possibility raised during public comment.
The copy of the agreement reviewed by NJ21st contains a blank effective date and blank signature lines. That copy alone does not establish when the 120-day period began or whether the agreement was ultimately executed in that exact form.
Illis’s account of the meeting is also incomplete.
She is correct that she did not tell Akiri she had no right to speak. Illis said she was “very uncomfortable” addressing the question because Akiri serves on the BOE.
Council President John Foster went further, telling Akiri:
“That’s not appropriate for this forum right here. Because you’re a member of the Board of Education.”
Mr. Foster did not respond to our email.
Akiri then stated that she was there alone as a taxpayer, did not have any special privileges without a quorum and was relying on publicly available information.
Council members continued to cite her BOE membership as the reason the question should not be addressed.
No law, School Ethics Act provision or confidentiality requirement preventing the Council from answering was identified during the meeting or in Illis’s subsequent email.
The Council could accurately state that Terrace II does not yet have an approved PILOT based on the agreement reviewed by NJ21st.
The broader claim that no PILOT is “under consideration,” however, is difficult to reconcile with an agreement that expressly anticipates a tax-exemption application and makes execution of a Financial Agreement within 120 days an intended condition of the redevelopment arrangement without further evidence.
The Berkeley Heights PILOT Problem
This article is part of NJ21st’s ongoing investigation into PILOT agreements, school funding pressure, and the decisions shaping Berkeley Heights.
View the Full Series →
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