Scanlan Ticket Wants To Broadcast Wyckoff Government Meetings: Letter

To the editor:

We look to the press to play a vital role as democracy’s “fourth estate.” But news organizations simply lack the resources to report in-depth at the local level. Fortunately, there are other ways to bring transparency to our hometown governance.

The Scanlan, Rubenstein and Pappalardo ticket has promised to have the meetings of the Township Committee and two land-use boards broadcast live. There are widely-used methods available for this purpose, ranging from do-it-yourself audio streaming to professional video broadcasting. That said, audio recordings are not enough. Video makes it inherently easier to understand what is going on without having to guess who is speaking or who might be absent. Brian Scanlan eloquently makes this point on his Facebook page:

There are affordable technologies to make local meetings more accessible to the public, as Oakland, Ridgewood, Wayne and other nearby towns have done for years. The one-time cost for equipment would range from nothing to, at the high-end, a mere 0.1 percent (one-tenth of 1 percent) of Wyckoff’s annual budget.

We need more transparency in our local government. The One-Wyckoff team of Scanlan, Rubenstein and Pappalardo would ensure we have it.

Roger Clark
Wyckoff, NJ