CREST HAVEN – Several members of the public continued the push on the Board of County Commissioners for better governmental transparency at the board’s Dec. 17 meeting.
Terence O’Neill from Wildwood told the commissioners he has been following the transparency issue in the county for the last three or four months. O’Neill asked Commission Director Leonard Desiderio whether the board planned to consider the recommendations made by Commissioner Will Morey.
“Mr. Desiderio, do you plan to consider any suggestions that Mister Morey has made?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” Desiderio said.
“Good. I hope there’s a positive response,” O’Neill said. Morey asked his fellow commissioners last month to consider holding meetings outside of normal working hours so more people could attend, and recommended that audio of commission meetings be made available more quickly to the public, but he did not get any backing from the board at that time.
O’Neill echoed a previous speaker in saying transparency is essential for good government to operate. He was followed by another county resident, Lisa Lebray, who said she has spoken several times at county commissioner meetings this year about the lack of transparency.
“I want to thank Commissioner Morey, Cape Issues in the Cape May County Herald for recently highlighting this topic,” she said. The Herald’s recent “Open Government” series spotlighted the county’s last-place ranking among South Jersey counties when it comes to ways to make it easier for residents to have access to county meetings.
Lebray said while all transparency is crucial, at least two means of transparency should be priorities, starting with maintaining a video archive of all county commission meetings. She said a few municipalities and boards of education are already doing this, and the county should follow.
She also said that several surrounding county governments, the Cape May County Board of Education and various county municipalities have links to read documents, which are attached to their meeting agendas. She said these links would assist the public in understanding what is happening in county government.
Lebray quoted past New Jersey governor and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson about transparency, who said, “Government ought to be outside and not inside. Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places and avoids public places, and we believe in a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.”
“Please do not let people in this county think that there is a nefarious reason for this lack of transparency,” she said.
Mary Fox, from Cape May, has previously commented on transparency in county government, and last month told the commissioners they all sit too far away from their microphones. At the Dec. 17 meeting, the microphones appeared closer or the commissioners appeared to better use the microphones in front of them. Fox told the board that if people understood what was going on the meetings might flow better than at present.
“There might not be so many logjams and uninformed speakers because we would already have the information and access to the information, so you can see where this might actually benefit you folks sitting up there because there would be less confusion,”’” she said.
Fox expressed her thanks to Morey for raising the issue of transparency, which she said would aid public participation in county government.
Morey, for his part, said he would help in any way he could to promote transparency.
Other speakers addressed the board on government transparency before switching to other topics. Lisa Rippo of Wildwood Crest said, “I’d like to get back to some transparency issues” before moving on to county 911 dispatch. Rippo has been visiting municipal and county meetings, objecting to the use of a central county 911 dispatch system, saying she has personally had problems with the system. Based on her interaction with county 911, Rippo believes there will be problems in the future.
County Counsel Jeffrey Lindsay, who had been interacting with Rippo during her comment time, told her, “You were here last meeting, and my instructions to the board, last meeting, was my reminder to the public that this is public comment, not public interrogation. So if you have a comment, you have five minutes to make your comments.”
Rippo then relayed a story she shared at other meetings about traveling on Route 50 when a pack of a dozen or so dogs ran out onto the highway. Rippo reported having trouble with the 911 dispatcher, even believing he had hung up on her. He had not, she said.
“Now, if I’m a mom on the beach and my kid’s drowning and I call and I think somebody hung up on me…” she said, going on to complain about the audio quality.
Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Christopher Leusner, who was present to speak about the drone sightings in New Jersey, oversees the county central 911 dispatch. He advised Rippo to email him if she has an issue and he will look into it. Otherwise, he said, he had very few complaints from law enforcement, and he is very confident in the level of service.
David Robinson of Court House likewise initially addressed governmental transparency before moving on to his main issue – landlords being burdened with the eviction moratorium during the Covid-19 pandemic. Robinson said he supported recording the meetings and making the recordings available online, as well as providing remote participation.
“You look at the question, if you don’t have the answer, get back to the person later, but we have to have total government transparency,” he said.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
