First of two parts on transparency in county and municipal governments.
It’s one of the core principles the Founding Fathers contemplated – transparency in government. But in some cases, it feels like something that needs to be advocated for, vigorously.
“A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both,” Founding Father and President James Madison put it in 1832.
Now, a recent Review & Opinion column in the Herald has prompted at least one member of the Cape May County Board of County Commissioners to evaluate how well that board is doing in maintaining this core tenet of democracy.
Will Morey told his fellow board members during their bimonthly meeting Tuesday, Nov. 12, that the Herald column “made an impression on me.”
“I think the board does a good job here in a lot of ways,” Morey said during the meeting. “And it seems to me that [transparency] would be something that we should … have some enthusiasm for, so to speak, about sharing broadly with the public.”
He talked about the fact that meeting during the workday – caucus meetings are at 2 p.m. and regular meetings at 3 p.m., every other Tuesday – compounded with not allowing any remote questions or comments from the community from online or by telephone is not conducive to public participation.
“There’s a lot going on in the county, and we all know that folks work at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the afternoon, many folks. It’s difficult for them to get to meetings,” Morey said, adding the commissioners used to meet at 7 p.m., which allowed those working during normal business hours to attend after work.
“It seems to me that it just makes sense for us, I think, to raise our standards, so to speak, and be able to have the public be able to certainly, if not participate in the meeting, ask questions.”
Morey said he presented research to his fellow commissioners two weeks ago that he conducted on how other counties in New Jersey handle public access as well as on how local municipalities deal with it. He could not be reached by a reporter in the days following the meeting for further comment.
According to research by the Herald, only four of New Jersey’s 21 counties do not allow the public to at least monitor county commissioner meetings via an online service.
In January, Cape May’s board passed Resolution 110-24, allowing the public to remotely access audio of the meetings via Microsoft Teams.
Still, no remote questions are entertained by the board, though Teams has the capability to accomplish that. And if residents can’t log on as the meeting is happening, they can’t get access to the audio recording until two weeks later.
Six of the 21 counties in New Jersey allow remote questions and comments in some form, the Herald research found.
In Cape May, where communities are replete with vacation homes, it’s axiomatic that remote access would be even more desirable to the public than elsewhere in the state. As the Herald editorial board pointed out: “We are the leading county in the state for second-home owners, who have the overwhelming bulk of properties that are market valued at over $80 billion.”
Morey said at the meeting, “There’s certainly been some concern about whether or not we want to open up the floor, so to speak, to virtual question-asking. But the notion of elevating, I think, our interaction with the public is important. And I think there’s good foundation of our peer counties doing that already.”
He said that improving transparency and making public participation easier could “showcase the good things that are being done.”
Morey passed out to his fellow commissioners copies of that Sept. 18 Review & Opinion column, “Everyone Is for Transparency, but So Few Practice It.”
Commissioner Director Leonard Desiderio said after Morey finished that he hadn’t reviewed Morey’s research material or the column but would like to discuss the matter at a future meeting. Each of the other commissioners – Andrew Bulakowski, Melanie Collette and Robert Barr – did not comment when asked at the meeting whether they’d like to discuss the issue further.
“Since we moved the meetings to 2 p.m., we’ve had more people that have come to our meetings,” Desiderio said. “[Morey] brought up the 7 p.m. meetings; we would go to the 7 p.m. meetings with only [former Herald Managing Editor] Al Campbell in the audience. Al was the only one in the audience for not months, but years.”
“I’d like to take this under advisement and come back to you with some ideas,” he told Morey.
The Herald’s editorial board had contemplated the empty room argument in the Review & Opinion article that Morey gave to Desiderio.
“We also don’t accept the argument that people don’t really want to participate,” the Herald opinion team wrote. “Encouraging that participation is the job of elected officials, not hiding behind small turnouts at face-to-face meetings.”
As the Herald editorial board wrote: “The point is simple. Greater transparency and citizen participation are always possible when the commitment to transparency is more than mere words.”
Contact the reporter, Shay Roddy, at sroddy@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 142.
