Flood Solution Group Attorney: 'We're Being Shut Out'

Members of the Hillsdale and Westwood Flood Solution Coordination Group came to the Westwood council meeting Tuesday night with their attorney to follow up on a and ask the council to allow them to meet with the engineer conducting the waterway study currently being conducted.

Attorney Don MacLachlan presented officials with a new letter Tuesday that asked, in part, for the council to authorize members of the group, council members and the borough attorney to begin negotiations with United Water to reduce reservoir levels. The letter also asked the council to authorize Borough Engineer Stephen Boswell to meet with flood group representatives to address questions and concerns members have with the study he has been authorized to complete.

Borough Attorney Russell Huntington said members of the governing body don't want to get "bogged down in procedures and second guessing and fine tuning exactly what it is that we're doing."

He said officials are also "concerned about fragmenting our activities by putting additional people at the table." He pointed out that if the governing body invites one person, there might be 10 other people who want to get involved. Those individuals would also have to be invited and might not be on the same page with regard to solutions.

Mayor John Birkner Jr. said officials have listened to residents' concerns and have authorized the engineering study in an attempt to find solutions to the flooding problems in the area.

"We are prepared to continue to move forward in exactly the course of action we have initiated," Birkner said.

MacLachlan said it seemed like the public was being excluded from evaluating the scope, design and rigor of the study, which he said could yield "a study with holes."

Birkner said officials are engaged in a process meant to bring forward answers if they exist, citing that Boswell Engineering is the hydraulic expert.

"When we have our information you will absolutely be availed to it. We have no secrets. We have nothing to hide," Birkner said. "We are working with residents to try to come up with solutions."

MacLachlan said group members will reserve judgment on the study, but they will fight back if they believe the findings are inadequate.

"This is not the process we would want to see. Even when the public comes up with a very sophisticated offer to participate, our offers are all being declined," MacLachlan said. "We're being shut out of the process once again."

Birkner said officials were not trying to be adversarial.

"We're trying to work in the best interest of residents," he said.

Westwood and Hillsdale representatives, including two residents, participated in a conference call Friday with Blue Acres personnel that outlined the process of applying for the funding meant for homeowners in flood prone areas. Borough Administrator Hoffmann said 16 Westwood properties meet the criteria for repetitive flooding, which the state will concentrate on first.

Hoffmann also said the group learned that while Hillsdale can apply for Blue Acres funding on behalf of its residents because it is considered in the Passaic River basin, Westwood cannot. He stressed that Westwood residents interested in Blue Acres funding must apply on their own behalf. Westwood officials have said they will not oppose individual Blue Acres applications.

The next Westwood council meeting is scheduled for Nov. 1.