Panelists Speak on Respect, Civility During Tuesday Night Discussion in Ridgewood

The Village of Ridgewood’s panel discussion on “Civility in Public Discourse” drew a large crowd to the Ridgewood Public Library Tuesday night, as Mayor Paul Aronsohn said he hoped it would “elevate public discourse.”

Panelists Lynne Algrant, an Englewood Councilwoman, Stephen Borg, the Publisher/President of North Jersey Media Group, Jacqueline Luthcke, Captain of the Ridgewood Police Department, Robert Sommer, a Public Affairs Executive and Jersey City Official, and Bergen County Executive James Tedesco shared their definition of civility, personal experiences of incivility and offered solutions to live in a more civil world.

Moderated by Rabbi David Fine, the panel discussion began with Lynne Algrant sharing vignettes of incivility she has seen as a Councilwoman, and offering suggestions to avoid incivility: allowing residents to weigh in before an ordinance in town is about to pass and writing ordinances ”in plain English” so the community feels included.

But before leaders expect civility, they should make sure they are civil themselves, Algrant said.

Stephen Borg said that for him, civility meant “being polite, courteous, and disagreeing with respect,” and noted he felt civility changed in 1987 after the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which required multiple views to be presented in a single news story.

Borg said he felt the the Internet has made it easier to be uncivil, and that anonymous and non-anonymous commentators often engage in personal attacks.

To combat incivility, Borg says North Jersey Media Group does not allow anonymous commenting, has eliminated anonymous sourcing and has a Letter to the Editor policy.

He also recommended residents not follow media that allows anonymous commenting, and shared his wife’s words of wisdom: act like your grandma is listening.

Next was Ridgewood Police Captain Jacqueline Luthcke, who began by saying “civility is important not only to our Village, but to society as well.”

Even phrases such as ”please” and “thank you” are starting to miss in our society, Luthcke said.

“We have to relearn to listen to others’ opinions without berating them,” she said before raising the question: “Would we have the issue of bullying if we used respect?”

To conclude, Luthcke said we should think before we speak, and think of how we would feel if someone said something uncivil to us.

Robert Sommer took the microphone next and said, “There’s a difference [between] having a voice ... and being an abuser ... and being nasty.”

“Words have meaning,” Sommer said. “Fighting with someone who disagrees with you is [like] fighting with your neighbor.”

But Sommer says that no disagreements are a bad thing, too, as it means there is no public discourse.

The other person “has a right to their opinion,” he said.

The last speaker was County Executive James Tedesco, who shared personal experiences as a father, grandfather and as a former coach.

He said being uncivil is “not all about yelling and screaming at somebody,” but also “how someone views you.”

Tedesco said he and his opponent, Kathleen Donovan, weren’t “the most civil of people” during the November election, but he realized that if he lost, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. The end of the world, he said, would be his wife dying at 55-years-old and him getting diagnosed with cancer - both of which Tedesco experienced.

To conclude, Tedesco said that “civility is not the absence of passion.”

Instead, one ”should be passionate but ... should not be rude.”