By Walter Elliott
ESSEX – Those who follow council meetings in Newark and East Orange can be reassured that they can get access to council agendas and their supporting materials.
“Local Talk” had so inquired from the respective East Orange and Newark municipal clerk offices in the wake of a Belleville man’s March 1 release of an Excel spreadsheet of agenda access, live broadcasting and regular public meeting start times of 25 municipalities among three counties.
Michael Sheldon, who is a regular Belleville Township Council meeting attendee and public speaker, said he had surveyed all 22 Essex County municipalities plus Hudson County’s Kearny and Lyndhurst and North Arlington in Bergen County.
Sheldon had conducted his survey to compare how the other municipalities have furnished agenda materials and broadcasted council meetings with Belleville. This survey was prompted by two incidents before and during Belleville’s Feb. 28 council meeting.
Sheldon and other council chamber gallery attendees found printed copies of that night’s meeting on chamber seats before the scheduled 6 p.m. start time.
Municipalities are required to post and publish governing bodies’ agendas at least 48 hours in advance on the respective meeting.
If one wanted to see full resolutions, ordinances and supporting materials related to Feb. 28’s agenda, however, they were thumbtacked to the bulletin board on the hallway wall next to the chamber’s doors. All of the bulletin board’s materials were in a locked glass case.
He or she who wanted that information would have to ask for a copy in Belleville Town Hall’s Municipal Clerk’s office during business hours.
Sheldon, a former Belleville Board of Education Trustee, later took exception to Mayor Michael Melham’s on-air comment that the Belleville council meeting is the only one in the area that is livestreamed.
By “livestream,” Sheldon included meetings carried live on Facebook, YouTube or Zoom. They are carried on the said social media channels plus on cable television public access channels.
Sheldon’s survey is timely in the wake of local governing bodies returning to live in-person meetings since the global COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic.
The Maplewood Township Committee, as of March 7, has reopened its chamber gallery to the public. The meetings will continue being livestreamed.
Viewers and attendees in other towns, including West Orange and Montclair, are asking their elected elders to ask questions during Zoom or other livestreamed channels.
Irvington’s Township Council meetings – among other municipal board and commission panels like zoning boards and housing authorities – remain “on Zoom only.”
Sheldon’s survey spreadsheet, concerning the 12 “Local Talk Towns,” found Newark and East Orange joining Belleville in not having full agenda materials available. Belleville was listed as “Never,” East Orange and Irvington as “Partial” and Newark as “Almost.”
“Local Talk” visited the East Orange Clerk’s Office March 14 to pick up a physical copy of the previous night’s 6 p.m. City Council Agenda. A copy was duly furnished – and could have asked for the same night’s 5:30 Committee Meeting Agenda.
A copy of each, along with agenda and meeting calendar notices of other East Orange and Essex County Commissioner panels, were tacked up on the Clerk’s Office bulletin board.
“Local Talk” did not venture into the Council Chamber to see if agendas – and a set of proposed resolutions and ordinances – were on the Gerry Branch Memorial Bulletin Board.
Both the committee and regular council agendas are reproduced hardcopies posted on East Orange’s city website. It appears that copies for proposed legislation are for in-person asking.
Irvington follows a similar rack to East Orange. “Proposed” Township Council agendas are posted on Irvington.net Physical copies thereof, because of its current by Zoom-only status, are posed in the Municipal Building and are available at the Township Clerk’s Office.
One has to call or visit the clerk’s office, however, to get a copy of a proposed resolution or ordinance.
By rating Newark “Almost,” Sheldon explained that he happened to visit the Municipal Clerk’s office “while they were still composing a full agenda packet” for the 12:30 p.m. March 1 meeting.
Newark.legistar.com, on the city website, lists both the March 1 and the 6:30 p.m. March 15 agenda. They are reproductions of the physical copies found on a table outside of the City Hall Council Chamber and on the clerk’s public table inside the chamber. (It was at the latter table where one, in pre-pandemic times, can obtain addendums to the already posted agenda.)
All 37 pages of the March 15 agenda and March 1’s 36 pages remain unchanged in format from pre-pandemic. Individual proposed legislation are listed under their pertaining city department. Each legislation has an extensive summary, including purpose, price amount, funding source, term length, vendor name, etc. It is more extensive than most other LT area agendas.
One can click on the reproduction’s serial number on online – and one gets linked back to Legistar’s summary. One still has to backtrack to the clerk’s office for a particular hard copy.
East Orange’s City Council meetings are livecasted at facebook.com/eocitycouncil. The said address is printed on the 2023 City Council Calendar and at the Clerk’s Office.
East Orange joins the other 11 Local Talk Towns that broadcast or livestream their council meetings.
Sheldon had faulted the Belleville Township Council meetings for starting at 6 p.m. A later start time, he reasons, will allow people to personally attend and participate.
“Local Talk” ranks Belleville as third or fourth earliest among its 12 towns. Many of the council’s start times have been traditional and long set.
Newark, for example, holds is first monthly meeting at 12:30 p.m. and its second at 5:30 p.m. Newark’s 5:30 start is tied with East Orange’s 5:30 p.m.
West Orange, at 6:30 p.m., is the next latest council public start. Montclair and Nutley start at 7 p.m. and the rest at 7:30.
The public start times should be listed as advisories. Prolonged executive sessions and/or inclement weather may delay posted start times.
