Research these 5 things for your borough, township, city, town or village municipality:
- Check to see if you can remove people from your municipal council or mayor, outside of elections.
- Look at the stipulations for removing people in your municipal council, mayor or anyone else.
- Find out how they pass decisions.
- Is it with the input of the people?
- Is it by majority?
- Can one person make a decision on their own (overruling the rest of the council)? BTW, this is actually something that exists!
- Find out what eminent domain authority your municipal officials have.
- Police: Find out how they structure the police in your municipality.
- Do they see them as municipal employees exclusively or is the municipality borrowing them?
- If police are borrowed, where is the municipality borrowing them from – the state, the federal government?
- Know the bylaws on these matters.
This information will be important in the future. Please organize and save what you find; use clear and logical filenames so that information can be retrieved and/or shared easily. Thanks!
NOTE: It’s crucial for state members to meet up with one another in person and get to know one another and learn how to work together locally.
Additional information:
This link contains informative content explaining how the most local forms of government – the municipal level – are structured and administered in New Jersey.
https://www.njlm.org/644/Forms-of-Municipal-Government—New-Jers
Tips & Hints:
Go to your municipality’s site. Look at the “government” menu or do a general search on “charter.” (It may also be under “administration” or something similar.)
Search for “domain”
Search for “removal”
Look for hints of how they handle accusations. Some municipalities appear to need a majority council vote. (There may be reference to the state’s statute about optional charters, NJSA 40, etc.)