Bedminster Meetings Need to be Videotaped, Resident Says

To the Editor:

Cockroaches tend to scurry away as soon as they are exposed to light.  That is how Bedminster Township Committee Republicans behave when faced with of prospect of videotaping town hall meetings.   Over the past month, Bedminster Committeewoman, Democrat Carolyn Freeman, has advocated for more transparency through video.  Bedminster Republicans are resisting this effort, not because of cost but because of an unwarranted fear.  Modern, consumer level, digital technology has made it very cheap to record video and post it online.  In fact, the cost is minimal given that Cablevision has recently given Bedminster $30,000 for this type of activity. 

Currently, if a member the public cannot attend a public meeting but wants to review what transpired, they have two greatly flawed options.  Option one is access to the minutes of a public meeting by making the request at Town Hall or searching on the Township’s website.  Option two is paying $1.45 to get an audio CD of the meeting.   The first option is insufficient because the typed minutes are severely edited and often exclude important and/or controversial remarks made by Township Committee members.  I know this because I have often compared the minutes to the audio recordings.  The second option is also insufficient, because the listener has to guess which committee member is speaking. 

At the last Township Committee meeting on November 18, it was becoming clear, despite Committeewoman Freeman’s efforts, that the committee’s GOP members will not support any effort to benefit the public by videotaping.  When I saw this was going nowhere I made a public comment and announced my intention to videotape these meetings, myself, starting in December.  I have the right to do this because the New Jersey Supreme Court held, in Tarus v. Pine Hill (189 N.J. 497, [2007]), that members of the public have a common law right to videotape public meetings.  When I record these meetings, I will post them online, unedited, on YouTube, and place a link to the online videos from the Bedminster Democratic Party website, www.bedminsterdemocrats.com.

This will not only lead to more transparency but convenience.  Busy members of the public with jobs and families will have the ability to get online and view their local town hall meetings in a way that fits their schedule.  It is my hope that this will result in more public participation because physical attendance at Bedminster’s public meetings, more often than not, is extremely low.  I ask all Bedminster residents, regardless of party affiliation, to support me in this effort.