On September 23, for the second meeting in a row, new Sea Isle City council member Ian Ciseck urged his fellow governing body members to embrace the idea of remote public access to council meetings. Again, he was met with reluctance and some lack of understanding of the options. Mayor Len Desiderio, who has not championed technology-enabled access to county commission meetings where he serves as commission director, was absent from the September 23 meeting in Sea Isle.
In the published City Council Message dated September 18, the council said that the body is discussing the concept of “broadcasting meetings” following Ciseck’s raising of the issue at the September 9 meeting. In that message, there was little discussion about remote access to meetings, and much more was said about alternative means of raising issues with council by making use of email and phone calls.
As one member of the public told the Herald following the September 23 meeting, “Council does not get that fact that a back-and-forth email exchange is between two people and still leaves the general public out of the loop on issues and responses.”
When council members do discuss remote meetings, terms are used in ways that suggest members of that body do not fully understand the options employed by other communities in the county. In Avalon and Stone Harbor, for example, full real-time livestreaming of the meeting occurs with the opportunity for the public to engage remotely in public comment. Remote microphones are muted or unmuted by a central operator employed by the municipality.
In Cape May City, the meetings are livestreamed for real-time viewing from a remote location. But the public cannot participate in public comment unless the individuals are present at the meeting. It is a model of remote video access without remote participation.
In Ocean City, meetings are not livestreamed in the sense that remote access to the meeting cannot occur when the meeting is live. Instead, a video of the meeting is posted to the town’s website the next morning for asynchronous remote access by anyone who wants to see the meeting that occurred the day before.
In Ocean City, Stone Harbor, Cape May City, and North Wildwood, copies of all resolutions and ordinances to be voted on are available on each municipality’s website for anybody to view. Resolutions and ordinances are not at Avalon meetings.
The options are many. When Council President Mary Tighe speaks of potential budget support for technology-aided access, she will need to have a sense of what model of access is being considered. None of the models represent a major expense.
Towns that livestream their meetings also upload the recordings at a later point in time. Those who are not available when the meeting is live have the option to watch when it is convenient. This asynchronous access is of even greater importance if meetings are routinely held during the normal 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday.
At the September 9 meeting, Sea Isle City resident Donna Fitspatrick told the council that she took off work to attend the meeting to express support for remote access.
“I would really like not to have to take off from work to come to a meeting,” she said.
For council members in Sea Isle City, these video recordings from other towns offer an opportunity to see how the meetings work with videotaping or livestream incorporated into them. Instead of speculating about possible grandstanding by members of the public, a few hours of viewing various town meetings would show that such behavior does not routinely happen.
During the council discussion over the two meetings since Ciseck first raised the issue, questions were raised about how one can prove that he or she is a citizen to determine if they are allowed to make remote public comment. It is a curious question, since state law does not limit participation in governing body meetings to citizens of that municipality. A member of the public who lives in Cape May can today travel to Sea Isle to raise an issue with the Sea Isle council.
A number of governing bodies in Cape May County have embraced technology as a way to increase public participation in local governance. This is especially true in island communities with a large percentage of property owners who live elsewhere.
Ciseck argues that the broader public should be given more ways to engage with the city’s governing body. Sea Isle City’s council has so far put the issue into advisement while insisting that avenues for interaction via email and phone already exist.
With respect to real-time remote access, Ciseck argues it is a way to increase engagement with the public.
“We are one of the municipalities that don’t offer this, and it frustrates me a bit,” Ciseck said at the Sept. 9 meeting.
How engaged the council will be on this issue and what position the mayor will take when he returns remain to be seen. For his part, Ciseck said after the September 9 meeting that he will continue to advocate for some form of access that does not require members of the public to travel to the Sea Isle municipal building on a workday morning.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
