Let’s Get Live Video Broadcasting of Hopatcong’s Town Meetings—They Are Too Important to Miss

Hopatcong’s Town Meetings do not have great attendance unless it is an important issue that is a popular topic.  Unfortunately, some of these mundane monthly meetings reveal things that you weren’t aware of about town policy and practices that impact the taxpayer’s pocketbook.  I feel guilty for not attending a December meeting because the weather was nasty that night.  However, my former write-in running mate filled me in on the important highlights of the December 7th meeting:

Revealed in this town meeting were facts that are our DPW Supervisor just received his professional license.  The Mayor congratulated him on his new accomplishment.  This is big news, because it revealed that this was not a traditional license renewal but attaining an individual professional license sponsored through Borough funding.  This would be against most hiring policies in
the private sector – paying for an employee’s first time initial license and schooling
with salary payouts at the same level as a licensed/degreed professional.  In the private business world there are certain attained credentials and prerequisites for hiring someone into a full management position – holding a degree or license would be one of them.  With a base salary of over $97,000, it was assumed this individual already had the prerequisite credentials when he was hired for the position and he attained this through his own personal educational loans and funding. 

I try to follow up on the Town’s Meeting Minutes by visiting their website http://www.hopatcong.org/Minutes_Meetings.php It would be great to acknowledge these revealing facts in print.  To my amazement quite a few meeting minutes have not been posted: April 20, 2011; Oct5, 2011; Nov 2, 2011; Dec 7, 2011; Dec 21, 2011. 

Not having these minutes posted on the website means that to find out what had transpired during these meetings one would have to visit the town hall and fill out the OPRA -Open Public Records Act form http://www.nj.gov/opra/ .  You will have to do this in person because they do not have these forms posted on the Hopatcong website http://www.hopatcong.org/forms_permits.php  To get the meeting minutes through this method there is a fee and a waiting period to get them.  You can request both a typed document and the audio CD of the meeting. 

Once I requested both the CD and typed minutes through OPRA.  I found that my personal discussion segment during this meeting was significantly abbreviated in the typed version.  This was not a very comforting thought, since it meant someone used editorial judgment on what should be disclosed in print. Don’t understand why the minutes can’t be typed verbatim since there is inexpensive
translation/transcribing word processing software that can automatically do
this. 

Many towns are starting to use live streaming video.  I think that Hopatcong should have this too.  There would never be complaints of missing a meeting because you could not get to it.  Plus it would be raw footage of what really transpired during these meetings – the ultimate in open public recording.  We would not be the first to get live streaming video in Sussex County.  The township of Vernon already has it in place.  If our town can fund individual professional licensing education to its management employees, it can find a budget for streaming video equipment.  It is a matter of distributing tax revenue for the greater public good rather than very generous individual benefit packages for its management employees.