This past Monday’s Township Council meeting came with a few scheduling changes. The closed executive session, where Council members hold private discussions for reasons such as attorney-client privilege, was held at 6:30 p.m., prior to the start of the regular meeting. It has typically been held at the end of the meeting, but Mayor Michael Vieira requested the change so that the Council would be able to offer the public some information about what had occurred that same night, rather than weeks later.
The conference meeting, which used to run from 7 to 7:30 p.m. and almost always continued at the end of the regular meeting, was extended 15 minutes to 7:45 p.m. This, Mayor Vieira said, would decrease the likelihood of having to continue the meeting later in the night. Whatever discussion is unfinished after that time (it was said in a dialogue earlier this month when laying out these changes), would then be continued at the end of the regular meeting, instead of returning to the conference room.
This change also meant that the regular meetings now begin at 7:45 p.m., not 7:30 p.m. A resolution was unanimously passed (on a 4-0 vote, with Council member Shawn Klein absent) during Monday’s meeting, confirming that this would be the meeting schedule for the rest of the year.
As part of these changes, the Council members and township officials also now offer reports in the Town Hall chambers, that were previously done in the conference room. Two meetings into this system, however, it seems that the portion of these comments during the regular meeting are reserved for applause and shout outs, while the more substantial discussion is still conducted during the non-livestreamed conference meeting. We hope this will change moving forward. While the conference section of the meeting is open to the public, it is not part of the livestream. The more of the meeting being put in front of cameras (which, along with the audio, is supposed to improve for the Council meetings starting with the February 13 meeting, according to township officials), the better.
In all, these are small changes to make but their intent, Mayor Vieira said, is increased transparency with the public about the business of the Council. We certainly approve of a more open dialogue between the Council and township residents. The changes were also designed to streamline the meetings a little more, as there would be less time moving from one room to the other, while also having more business conducted in front of the livestream in Town Hall chambers.
Unfortunately, so far, neither of those things have happened. On Monday, the public was left waiting for the conference meeting to start, as the executive session ran longer than a half hour. Then, nothing of substance was shared about the session during the regular meeting, which was the expressed purpose of holding it ahead of time. Later in the meeting, there was also discussion by Council members of returning to closed session at the end of the evening anyway. While this did not happen, there is reason to believe that it will at future meetings.
Additionally, the meeting still returned to the conference room after the regular portion, instead of finishing in the main room in front of the livestream. Making this more troubling was that there was an important agenda item left to discuss – what to do with the pools. The Council said that this item would not be talked about that night because Council member Klein was unable to attend. Yet, the pools were still discussed for over half an hour in the continuation of the conference meeting, not in front of the livestream, after the public was told that would not be the case.
We do believe that these meeting changes were made with good intentions. We are also sure that some of these kinks will be worked out as time goes on. But we hope that, despite the passage of the scheduling change resolution on Monday, the Council will not be precluded from taking a look at what works and what does not over the next few meetings, and adjusting accordingly.
In our opinion, there is little benefit to residents to opening the meeting with an executive session; it also wastes their time when those sessions inevitably run long. We also strongly believe that once the meeting enters Town Hall chambers, it should remain there until it is adjourned.
