Letter to the editor of JLBC

I just sent this letter to the editor of The Jewish Link of Bergen County (JLBC) regarding their early coverage of Teaneck's recent council election and a related editorial. You can access JLBC here:

http://www.flipdocs.com/showbook.aspx?ID=10009972_503462

Note the cover headline, then read story on page 75. The best way to get to it is to click the button for the last page and then click the left-pointing arrow to go back one page. To read the editorial, click the right-pointing arrow from the cover to page 28.

Mark Schwartz, a Teaneck council member who did not run this year but follows the current council majority (soon to be a minority) is a co-founder of this publication.

*****
To the Editor, 

Your May 15 cover headline, “Teaneck Council 2014 Election Winners – Close Race Marked by Low Turnout” got me flipping pages to “SEE STORY ON PAGE 75.” What a letdown! Not one statistic, not one quote, not one word about the turnout. 

Likewise, I was perplexed, and not a little uncomfortable, with your editorial on page 28. Perplexed because here, too, the low turnout was bemoaned as fact without any data to support the claim or put it in context; and uncomfortable because raising the specter of the Holocaust strikes me as inappropriate after an election in which thousands of conscientious citizens chose two fine, public-spirited newcomers, one of them a member of the Orthodox community.

For decades, turnout in Teaneck municipal races has seldom been robust. What I would have liked to know is, was it significantly lower than usual in this election? Lower across-the-board, or in districts that, to their credit, have traditionally led the town in turnout? And if the latter, can we attribute that simply to “apathy”? Or to disillusionment with the quality of governance the voters had previously elected? 

A drop in turnout can sometimes reflect conscious voter abstentions. And dismissing that as apathy can sometimes just be sour grapes.  

Jeff Ostroth