To the editor, Your story “Zoning Board” (Sept.22) understandably falls short of directly answering the question “Political cowboys or beleaguered volunteers?” which was posed by the headline. One answer to that question can be found, however, in the official minutes of a meeting of the West Milford Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) that was closed to the public on June 28, 2005. During that meeting which wrongfully excluded the public, Daniel Jurkovic --- who your story quoted as an apologist for the ZBA and its lawyer Stephen Glatt --- gave the game away. The minutes of that meeting include a passage that summarizes what Jurkovic told his colleagues about the possibility of ZBA decisions being questioned. One of the statements attributed to Jurkovic in the minutes is especially revealing. “If a vote [of the ZBA] goes to the council any member of this community can debate whether the Board’s decision was appropriate,” Jurkovic is quoted as saying as a reason for not allowing the public to participate in full and open discussions of the actions taken by the self-serving volunteers appointed to the ZBA. The minutes also note that Jurkovic said that letting the public debate the ZBA’s decision would be the “worst case” scenario. It is past time for someone to strip away Jurkovic’s mask. Reportedly a person with a law degree, he advocates keeping the public in the dark and his pseudo-justifications for the abominable behavior of the ZBA and its attorney are shameful. In addition to his disdain for the public’s right to know, Jurkovic’s participation in the meeting of June 28, 2005, speaks volumes about him. Under the state’s Open Public Meetings Act, he had a duty to at least question the propriety of privately talking about a subject that should have been discussed in the open. Jurkovic, with 10 years on the ZBA, should know that. Rather than object to the discussion, however, Jurkovic led it. As a result, Jurkovic should resign. That would be the honorable thing for him to do. Honor, however, is a concept that is foreign to most if not all of the members of West Milford’s ZBA who are fixated on partisan politics rather than serving the best interests of the public at large. Martin O’Shea, West Milford