About Berkeley Heights Community Watch
I created Berkeley Heights Community Watch (BHCW) in response to recent and significant decisions by local government entities that intentionally bypassed a resident referendum. The most recent example involved the Berkeley Heights, NJ Board of Education voting through reconfiguration and redistricting with little to no community input after a secretive process.
Since launching BHCW we are very proud of what we have accomplished. The District has been held accountable for a violation of Bidding and Educational Adequacy Laws, BHCW played a pivotal role in stopping the District from removing a language based on wrong information, we informed the public on probable ethical violations against the Superintendent that are on their way to a judge and exposed mounting legal and administrative costs.
BHCW played a critical role in pushing the District to acknowledge OPMA violations and have given parents and youth a space to discuss their growing concerns as the District appears to be shutting down every avenue of input.
BHCW blew the door open on the 2022 Budget process exposing misinformation provided to the public by Angela Penna, Michael D’Aquila and Dr Varley. Despite the Business Administrator’s best efforts – BHCW provided our community with the full school budget prior to the final vote after taking the matter to county and state government representatives.
BHCW stepped in when the Districts Attorney’s prevented a parent from attending a meeting with the judge in connection to the Superintendents Nepotism allegations and informed the public of SEC-validated ethics violations among several BOE Members.
We informed the public of inconsistencies that appear to point to different rules for different parents and elected officials as a means of influencing public opinion and elections. We spoke out when we discovered the Teachers contract, celebrated as an achievement by District leadership had not been signed months after the announcement. We stepped in when teachers were left with crowded classrooms of students at different levels of need with little to no support.
Not one of our articles attacks residents or parents. Not one of our articles has anything to do with material outside of policy or actions by individuals in conducting the business of their office – except when we talk about what we love about our town.
Content on this website is by residents from residents and we encourage the Berkeley Heights community to contribute to this site and share their opinions and ideas on local policy matters.
All ideas and political philosophies are welcome; however, BHCW will not tolerate hate speech or harassment. Public Officials and their policy decisions and policy positions are fair game. Still, private information about public officials or their families is not permitted unless evidenced and connected to conflict of interest in connection to their roles. The purpose of this site is to educate the public on material concerns; any content that appears to have the sole intention of embarrassing or harassing anyone will not be accepted and will be removed.
Articles on national policies and politics will be allowed as long as a solid and clear connection to Berkeley Heights is made within the article.
As with any online cooperative, the views expressed by individual writers are not those necessarily held by myself or the site. The site, however, stands firmly on the side of political free speech as a means of exposing all ideas, the good and the bad, as a free exchange of ideas has always been the best mechanism to policy.
We answer to no political party. We answer to no business interest. None of our contributors are paid. This website makes no profit. We are accountable to one thing – protecting the best interests of our community.
We are Berkeley Heights Community Watch and we seek to continue our Town’s proud tradition of active involvement in local government.
-John Migueis
