Well, it only took 11 months, but we’re very happy to report that the local news has finally taken notice of the Nutley Watch, and provided some coverage of our issue campaigns.
The following article was featured in both the Nutley Sun and the Belleville Times this week. We’re very grateful to the staff of both newspapers for taking an interest in our work.
I also took this opportunity to officially announce the upcoming Essex Watch project, launching in February.
Nutley blogger, Facebook poster team up
Hasime Kukaj – Staff Writer, Nutley Sun
Several Nutley residents have brought forward hot button issues to social media in an effort to create transparency in local government.
“I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” said Lee “Griff” Dorry, founder of community advocacy group Nutley Watch.
Dorry, who has called Nutley home for 10 years, recently began to post items about Nutley. His original Nutley plan was shifted by incidents in neighboring Belleville’s school district.
“It’s morphed into something else now,” Dorry said of his blog.
According to Dorry, the Belleville school district overspent its budget by $4.8 million, including spending $2 million on a surveillance system from Clarity Technologies Group LLC, which is in litigation with the district.
In addition, Dorry said he also learned that high school students were sharing outdated textbooks.
“Once this became our primary issue campaign, it only took us about three months to bring in the state to oversee the school board’s finances, and to oust the superintendent,” Dorry said in an email. “It’s been a difficult struggle. We’re going up against some powerful politicians, but we’re making rapid progress.”
Dorry also films and posts the Belleville Board of Education meetings on his site, which he said are viewed 1,000 times, if not more.
The Nutley Watch blog was created in February, and a Facebook page was created a month later.
The Facebook page, which has more than 500 likes, reaches between 2,000 and 10,000 people a week.
“We’ve only been around about eight months, but just about everything you see unfolding in the Belleville school district is on account of us working with the residents to stop what was happening, and to bring about a major reform,” Dorry said.
Dorry, who is a self-employed business and technology consultant, specializes in communication and information management.
“I work with everything from small businesses to Forbes 100 companies [as] well as government contracts,” he said.
“Our mission is to ignite a true grassroots movement to get people involved in local issues, large or small, by raising awareness via the internet and social media,” the blog states.
“I’m partnering with the community and community advocates,” Dorry said.
Pennie Landry, co-founder of the Nutley Homeowners Community facebook page said that after almost a year of starting the page, “a real team is forming.”
The page, which has more than 1,200 likes, will hit its one-year mark on Jan. 1.
“The only thing that had really come out of [the NHC Facebook page] from the standpoint of transparency is that the board [of commissioners] meetings are now being broadcast,” Landry said.
More than 56 percent of NHC page followers are between 25- and 44-years-old, with 37 percent being women and 19 percent being men, according to Landry.
“That’s the voice of Nutley, that voice of future Nutley needs to be heard,” Landry said. “Nutley Homeowners Community is really about the future Nutley Homeowners Community and that information is what will give the citizens a voice.”
Posts on the page relate to township issues and topics, and help residents make informed decisions, according to Landry.
Another recently created page, which goes by the Real Nutley Homeowners, also keeps residents up to date with topics around town. The page has inexplicitly reached more than 16,500 likes since it was created in September. The page’s administrator could not be reached for comment.
Partnership
Dorry and Landry plan to start an Essex Watch blog. Landry will post Nutley issues will be highlighted in Nutley Vision. There will be a Bloomfield section entitled Bloomfield Pulse.
Essentially, Dorry hopes to have a “watch” for each Essex County town.
Other issues
One of Dorry’s goals consists of lobbying for Open Public Meetings Act legislation.
“That’s a big thing for me,” Dorry said. “The set of laws is decades old and hasn’t been revised and modernized.”
During previous Nutley Board of Commissioners’ meetings, Landry raised concerns about property value increases, the Economic Development Advisory Committee, and the $17,000 in equipment used to broadcast meetings that do not show up on the municipal site.
She has recommended posting meetings on a YouTube channel for free.
“We live [in an age of] technology when you can just upload to a website,” Landry said. “If it’s 2 a.m. and you can’t sleep, you can watch the board meeting.”
The meetings are aired for four of five nights at 9 p.m. on Optimum Channel 77 and Verizon Channel 42.
“Even though we’ve made a very small step forward, we spend a lot of money to go backwards in technology,” Landry said. “Now will people agree with me or not, I’m not sure.”
“We’re happy [that] the [NHC] group is growing. We’re making slow progress; however, we’re tenacious and we will continue,” Landry said.
“It’s been a grueling enlightening experience. We are seeing a little more light shed on the issues; however, we have ways to go before total transparency.”
Update: Nice article, but it does contain a few errors. The only one worth taking the time to clarify is that “Bloomfield Pulse” is a community page that already exists (I believe on Facebook), and has nothing to do with us.
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