It’s election time again in Teaneck, where just under half of our readership lives and where we currently deliver our newspaper via free home delivery to nearly 4,000 households.

As our community continues to grow, with new schools, existing schools and shuls expanding and new developments opening or beginning construction, it is incredibly important and vital that every eligible Teaneck voter and reader of our paper vote this Tuesday.

One election can have significant and long-lasting consequences for nearly everything, ranging from issues such as taxes, schools, busing and development to parks, sidewalks, police and more.

It pained us tremendously when we heard story after story following past town elections where qualified candidates we knew and supported lost by less than 50 votes. These candidates reported to us that if only a few more people from their own shul or on their block had made the effort to vote, they would have been elected. What bothered us even more was learning about and seeing firsthand how people we know would blithely report to us or to the losing candidates that they voted for them, when a quick check of the election records showed that they haven’t voted in years, if not decades. (Yes, whether you vote or not is publicly available info.)

Voting in Teaneck is quick and easy and it’s rare that a trip to your local polling booth will take more than five minutes. For your own sake and for our community’s future, please vote on Tuesday.

We don’t endorse candidates in every election and we have learned firsthand that endorsements are not always simple—especially when the candidates we back don’t win. With these thoughts and concerns in mind, we write to warmly and publicly endorse the following three candidates for Teaneck Town Council.

They are:

Elie Katz, our current deputy mayor

Keith Kaplan, current vice chair of the Teaneck Planning Board

Jim Dunleavy

Elie Katz is a familiar figure and longtime friend to both of us and to our community. He literally lives and breathes Teaneck, having served eight years as Teaneck mayor/deputy mayor and 20 years on the town council. His accomplishments include securing millions of dollars in new revenue through responsible development as well as a zero/flat municipal tax increase for three straight years. He is also what we consider a true askan (someone who gets things done) and is certainly one of our “go-to” people whenever any town or related issue comes up.

Keith Kaplan is the current vice chair of the Teaneck Planning Board where he has assisted on new developments aimed at bringing in new revenue and providing
a more diverse housing stock for our community—which Teaneck desperately needs. He is also a proud member of Teaneck’s Congregation Shaare incredible Tefillah and a BPY parent.

In addition, Keith has 20 years of experience reviewing legal regulations and he put that experience to use over the past 18 months in defending civil rights and religious freedom by taking on a mostly thankless leadership role in the recent Mahwah eruv controversy, sometimes at great personal risk and bearing the brunt of a lot of bias-related hate against Orthodox Jews. But he stayed the course; Keith’s work and effort directly led the Bergen County District Attorney’s office, and later the State Attorney General’s office, to begin investigating and eventually charging Mahwah with a three-pronged lawsuit alleging bias-related violations.

Running together with Keith Kaplan is Jim Dunleavy, a 31-year resident of Teaneck who works as a doctor of physical therapy and as the administrative director of rehabilitation services at Trinitas Regional Medical Center. Dunleavy has been active on the Teaneck Junior Soccer League Board and currently runs a Teaneck soccer program for children with special needs. He also is a member of the Votee Environmental Advisory Board. We know Jim as an open-minded decision-maker whose only goal is doing what’s best for the town of Teaneck.

We believe that these three candidates—Elie Y. Katz, Keith Kaplan and Jim Dunleavy—best represent us, our Teaneck readership and our interests. But they will only be able to act on our behalf if we vote in significant numbers for them.

Get out and vote on Tuesday! And vote for Katz, Kaplan, and Dunleavy!

By Moshe Kinderlehrer and Mark J. (Mendy) Schwartz, co-publishers, The Jewish Link of New Jersey