Meeting Procedures for Attendees

Every interested person or his qualified agent appearing at a public meeting of the Jefferson Township Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment shall have the opportunity to set forth any information or statements relative to matters under consideration by the Board. However, fairness to all parties concerned requires that the Board follow an orderly procedure with regard to the receipt of evidence or statements. The cases will be heard in the order in which they appear on the agenda, which has been posted on the Bulletin Board. As each case is called, the Chairman will introduce the application and the Board will ascertain whether the jurisdictional requirements have been met.

Each applicant will present his case first. Then members and counsel of the Board may ask any questions of the applicant or his witnesses, which they consider pertinent. At the conclusion of questioning by the Board, any person in the audience may ask any material questions concerning the application. You must first state your name and address. Orderly procedure requires that members of the audience will not be permitted to make speeches or statements at this time.
After the Applicant has presented all of its testimony, any member of the audience wishing to support the application will be given the opportunity to state his position. The Board and public as above may question these persons.
Any objector will then be given the opportunity to state his position. The Rules of Procedure before this Board require all statements to be material to the matter which is being heard. The chairman will rule irrelevant or immaterial statements out of order. The Board, the applicant, his agents and/or the public may question objectors.
Law pertaining to consideration of legal evidence limits the Board. Legal evidence consists of testimony given after the speaker has sworn or affirmed to tell the truth. Therefore, if you have any facts to present to the Board, these facts must be given in accordance with the legal requirements. However, if any person desires to state for the record that he is an objector or that he is supporting the application and does not wish to give facts to the Board, it is necessary that he be sworn. All testimony, questions and statements will be recorded by the Board's secretary or electronically recorded and form the record for the hearing of each application.
Upon completion of the taking of testimony, the public hearing as to the particular application will be closed and the Board will proceed to deliberate the application or in some cases, decide to continue the deliberations to another time and date, which will be announced. If a decision is reached, the Board's vote will then be entered in the public record. The Board will then proceed to hear the next case.

Those members of the public wishing to address the Board on any matter not listed on the agenda will be given the opportunity during the general public portion, after the public hearings for specific applications.

Please Follow the Rules

In order to expedite the hearing and to protect the rights of all parties, the Board requests that persons in the audience adhere strictly to these rules.