Library Trustees Agree To Start Recording Meetings In October

Members of the Library Board of Trustees will probably start video recording their meetings in October.

Saying he was “frustrated” with the slow pace of arranging for their meetings to be televised, Mayor Phillip Kramer Aug. 24 told the Library Board of Trustees, to, essentially, “get it done.”

“I am suggesting that you task January (Adams, the library director) to get it done,” Kramer told the board. “Find the cheapest way.”

Kramer’s frustration stems from the fact that he first brought up the notion of the board televising its meetings late last year. The board in April decided to look into costs associated with televising its meetings from the Township Council chamber, or from its regular meeting site, the Historical Collections room in the library.

“We are now nine months later and we are nowhere with it,” he said of his initial request.

Kramer has said that he believes that any public body subject to the Open Public Meetings Act should either video record or televise their meetings.

Board member Nicholas Ciampa, Kramer’s representative to the library board, eventually came up with a solution. Sort of.

“I think we should try anything just to get this moving along,” he said. “I’m busy in September, but I can have something ready for the October meeting that will have a video and audio component. I can’t say what it will be, but I will have something.”

That solution didn’t come easy and was not unanimously supported. Trustee Janet Walton said she did not favor recording the meetings.

Board member Iris Kislin said she was against the idea of televising meetings from the council chamber because, she said, “the sound is terrible.”

“I have excellent hearing, and there’s nothing wrong with my Smart TV,” she said. “It depends on how far someone’s mouth is to the mic. Sometimes it’s so awful.”

“Until that’s straightened out, I don’t know why we would want to get involved in it,” she said. Televising the meetings from the library room rather than the chamber, she said, “is good advertising for us.”

Kramer told her the township is “working on” the sound issue. “We are trying to improve the sound system. I don’t think that is a reason to delay it.”

The board in April floated the idea of having a high school student come in and record the meetings, but Kramer said schools Superintendent John Ravally said that probably would not happen.

The mayor told the board that he didn’t care if the meetings were televised live or recorded on a disk.

“I think we need to be public,” he said. “I think there is little excuse in this day and age to not be.”

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