Not in a million years.

When I boarded the train for my Wednesday class, I knew that the council might announce that night that they'd come to a new agreement with Asbury Partners, our beachfront redevelopers. Alternatively, they could have extended the boardwalk negotiating deadline - as they had several times before.

Given the lack of newspaper updates on this widely reported story - and the dearth of information on the city website the day before - I assumed that negotiations were continuing.

And if a tentative deal had been struck, I knew they'd schedule a public meeting to describe the plan and set a date for residents to comment - just as we'd done with the original Beachfront Redevelopment Plan and Redeveloper's Agreement in 2002.

Instead, the council chose a third path that was eerily reminiscent of their less upstanding predecessors: The small audience at the 6 p.m. workshop meeting was given a brief overview of the proposed agreement.

People who happened to be there - most likely to comment on something else at the 7 p.m. public session - had to immediately decide whether to use their three minutes at the microphone to ask for clarification.

And then the council voted - 4 to 0 - to accept the plan.

No chance for the public to read it over. No special meeting to answer questions and collect public comments. No definitive warning at all for people who didn't regularly attend city council meetings.

And, incredibly, the public wasn't even permitted to see the agreement after the vote: Not the next day. Not the day after that. Not, in fact, until five days later when it was officially signed by the city and Asbury Partners. Not until it was too late to matter.

Of course, the deeply ironic part is that - right before the current council majority was seated in 2001 - a band of us (including Councilman John Loffredo) spent four grueling years fighting for public information and participation - and got ourselves sued, investigated, and even physically threatened in the process.

And one of our primary objections concerned city council members who acted on redevelopment measures before the public could see and comment on them. Which is why the April 5 vote was - and is - so disturbing.

And please don't let anyone give you any mumbo-jumbo about how council resolutions don't require public comment, or how the proposed agreement couldn't be publicly discussed before the vote.

Our original Redeveloper's Agreement - 110 hotly-negotiated pages detailing how and when redevelopment would begin - legally could have been approved as a resolution without public comment. But the 2002 city council consciously chose to introduce it as an ordinance because we wanted to give the public time to absorb it and unrestrained time to comment on it at a public meeting - just as we did with the basic Waterfront Redevelopment Plan four months earlier.

And with on-going redevelopment scheduled all over town - on the beachfront, on Springwood Avenue, in the S.T.A.R.S. West Side redevelopment area, on Main Street, in the downtown, in the scattered site properties - city groups need to demand now that this never happens again.

Which is why I hope that individuals and groups - including the Asbury Park Homeowners Association, which led the good-government battle five years ago - will remind the council that we expect more of them.

And, given the long-term impact of this document, I also hope they'll publicly ask the council to schedule a follow-up meeting to explain the agreement, and to answer residents' questions and hear their concerns.

Because while the city obviously spent many hours in good faith negotiations - and actually made some real progress - there are serious open issues that require immediate resolution: For example, Section 3 of the new document requires Asbury Partners to begin rehabilitating the boardwalk pavilions at the rate of one every nine months, as provided for in the 2002 agreement.

But there is no corresponding requirement that the developers first submit an all-important concept plan showing how all aspects of the boardwalk - including buildings, light fixtures, gazebos, paving, landscaping, signage and more - will work together to give us the memorable and coherent beachfront we deserve, rather than an incoherent and uninspired mishmash.

And, although the city was finally in a strong position to bargain for that much-needed senior and community center - at a location that was first discussed almost two years ago - that negotiation apparently didn't happen.

And, yes, I'm sincerely happy that Asbury Partners must have city-approved construction documents for Convention Hall, the power plant, and the Casino arcade and carousel house by September, 2007 (particularly if that date includes approval by the NJ State Historic Preservation Office).

But the new agreement raises many questions about the short-term restoration of our historic structures: For example, how will the city ensure that our wildly original Fifth Avenue pavilion is properly (and expensively) restored? When the roof of the carousel house is replaced next spring, will the decorative copper work, dome and lighting also be restored?

And, speaking of preservation, our state CAFRA permit requires that Asbury Partners preserve and reuse the Palace Amusement murals. Yet last August the Save Tillie organization was forced to hire - and pay for - a conservator because Asbury Partners was providing inadequate protection for Tillie and his bumper-car friends.

The April agreement incredibly gives the developers until August 1 - one full year after the issue was raised - to address the problem. It also states that - once the new sheds are built - Asbury Partners is no longer responsible for the safe-keeping of the murals. That is not what the CAFRA agreement states - not by a long-shot - and I have to wonder what that means for our other historic boardwalk treasures.

Of course, I did learn that there is one legal way for the public to comment on the agreement: They can go to court and file an appeal within 45 days of its signing. Needless to say, even publicly debated agreements can end up there.

But that shouldn't be the first - and only - option for Asbury Park citizens. Not now. Not ever.