Short and sweet, but not without its share of drama.
Hopefully our vets in town are able to get on the same page sometime in the near future, since really, it sounds like everyone wants the same thing. Not much else to say on that topic.
Of particular importance tonight was a boatload of grants, and the appointing of a new Library Board trustee to take the place of now-outgoing board president Richard Yanuzzi. His term ends December 31st.
And gosh, won’t he be sorely missed.
I would show you the sizable list of resolutions passed this evening, but since the Council seems to have forgotten lately how to provide residents with agendas in advance of meetings on their still-active town website, I have nothing to share with you at the moment. We’ll be taking up their rather lax attitude toward the Sunshine Laws with the Council as soon as the new year begins. They’ve had close to a year to get their act together with OPMA and OPRA, with little pressure from us. Come 2015, playtime is over.
That issue aside, one action taken tonight is of particular concern to us. A couple of months back, the resolution to record and broadcast town council meetings on the cable access station was tabled. Tonight, it was taken off the table, then killed off altogether.
Please excuse the crude everyday acronym, but….WTF?
And this time, you can’t blame Longo or Burke for standing in the way of progress either, because neither of them bothered to attend the meeting tonight in the first place. I guess they had more important things to do than to serve Belleville for an hour this month. Hope they took some good selfies for their Facebook pages.
Anyway, back to the cable station resolution.
Some of us discussed it tonight after the meeting, and we’ve reached a firm decision. We’re through waiting patiently for something that the community deserves, and is entitled to.
For those of you who may not be aware of this, the township of Belleville is paid an estimated $350-450,000 each year by Comcast Corporation (2% of their gross revenue from the town’s cable subscribers) to provide public access programming to its citizens. I know, pretty shocking when you first hear that info, isn’t it?
Just in case you were about to ask, exactly how much of that funding goes toward operating a public access station for Belleville residents?
Zero, my friends. Zero.
So then, where does all that money go? Straight into the General Ledger. Then, wherever the Council pleases, but obviously not toward keeping the citizens of Belleville informed as to what’s happening in the town’s various public meetings. And judging by Mr. Frantantoni’s spirited testimony each month at council meetings, I think it’s safe to say that this money is not going toward fixing broken water pipes around town.
Coincidentally, Mrs. Frantantoni also stood up, and inquired as to why we’re not using the cable station to publicize important townwide announcements for residents on television. The answer to that is simple – the Board of Education maintains exclusive control over the existing cable station, WBHS. This is despite the fact that technically, the hardware that was installed for their feed was paid for by a grant from Comcast to the township, and is therefore a township asset. This sort of control that precludes reasonable access by the rest of the township is actually a direct violation of the entire principle of PEG public access programming in the first place. In fact, it’s right in the name; public…access.
A public access cable station belongs to the township, and is for the benefit of three entities…Public, Education, and Government (PEG). It cannot be controlled by any one of them, to the exclusion of the others.
The Council is therefore compelled to take advantage of a clause in their franchise agreement with Comcast that allows the township to set up an additional feed….basically another hardware connection that allows public access programming to be created, either on the existing station, or on an entirely new one.
We’re perfectly happy to allow the high school to continue doing their own thing with WBHS, on their own dime. Knock yourselves out. In fact, many large municipalities will often have three cable stations, managed separately for each of the three PEG purposes. However, the township has its own needs right now, which can only be served by the Council authorizing Comcast to create an additional public access station feed, in an accessible location (presumably Town Hall).
The bottom line is that not only are residents entitled to informed participation in public meetings by virtue of the Open Public Meetings Act, by federal law, Comcast provides Belleville with the financial means to do so via the cable station and public access programming. Recording and broadcasting public meetings to its citizens doesn’t cost Belleville a penny, because Belleville is already given the funding to do so. And quite a lot of it, for many years.
There is absolutely no excuse on earth for not broadcasting public meetings. This is the Information Age….not the Stone Age. For crying out loud, I’m doing it entirely for free, on a $35 blog!
Well, we’re through waiting patiently for months on end for the Council to do the right thing. We knew this was coming, and we’ve been preparing. The Council has spent months playing political volleyball with something that their own constituents want and deserve. Something that the Council is paid handsomely to provide its citizens, and that they clearly have no intention of giving to us.
We’re through asking nicely. Most of you know the drill by now.
Prepare for battle.
~ Griff
Oh, and enjoy the video 😉
Update: This article isn’t NorthJersey.com’s actual coverage of the meeting (not sure if any was even published), but since the timing of it coincides with the meeting, I’ll post it here anyway:
Belleville councilman questions legality of township manager’s dual role
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