CAPE MAY – Cape May City Council members Zack Mullock and Stacey Sheehan have been pushing a resolution to require the videotaping of citizen advisory committee meetings for over two months.
They have lost repeated votes on the measure 3-to-2, with Mayor Clarence Lear, Deputy Mayor Patricia Hendricks and Council member Shaine Meier consistently opposing the move.
At the July 23 council meeting, the measure was brought back to the agenda from being tabled June 5 and was again defeated 3-to-2.
Sheehan and Mullock have argued that much of the work being done by the advisory groups is critical to the city’s future, that meetings, often held during the day, are not easy for citizens to regularly attend, and the ability to view the meeting on video would add to citizen involvement and government transparency.
Lear, Hendricks and Meier have taken the position the meeting times are placed on the city’s website, that they are open to all members of the public, that the committees regularly report to council in governing body meetings which are video accessible, and recording the meetings would chill open discussion, especially in this era of social media reaction.
Advisory committee members who were informally polled indicate strong antipathy for having video recordings of meetings.
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