As the Jackson Twp. Council continues to drag its feet on appointing new members to the Zoning Board, its procrastination is having real-world effects.
The Jackson Zoning Board held a meeting on Wednesday night, but just four members showed up. That left the Board without a quorum to hear applications – the minimum for a quorum is five members present – meaning that the Board couldn’t hear any applications. This forced it to carry all Board-related hearings until the next meeting.
This disaster was seen coming for a long time. There are multiple Zoning Board seats vacant, yet the Jackson Council, which appoints the members of the Zoning Board, has been anything but eager to fill those vacancies.
Numerous applications to fill the seats have been submitted over the last year, but the Council has essentially ignored all of them. As previously reported on Lakewood Alerts, the Council finally decided to put Flemming and Glory ally Bob Hudack on the Board – but he never even submitted an application to be on it.
That led to Councilwomen Jennifer Kuhn to demand that his appointment be tabled, which the Council unanimously agreed to.
The question posed by numerous residents at the last meeting remains: Why isn’t the Jackson Township Council considering the people who have sent in applications to serve on the Zoning Board?
Jackson requires a tremendous amount of paperwork and work for simple home variances costing the average Joe thousands if not tens of thousands and they don’t even get their day to be heard. Crazy.