Watch videos of Council Meetings here on YouTube.
I was encouraged and inspired by a friend to follow-up on an idea I discussed with him. If you would like to know who it was please contact me and I will be happy to talk to you further about it.The idea was bringing coverage of council meetings with a Hasbrouck Heights Public Access Channel using equipment subsidized by the Verizon and Cablevision fees that are paid to the town for use of public lands to provide access to people who pay monthly cable bills. In other words, your money and as far as I know, separate from taxes.
We anticipate collecting from Cablevision $102,482.00 and Verizon $54,183.23 this year for a total of $156,665.23 as reported in the 2013 budget.
I asked the Mayor about doing this in 2007, in writing, after investigating with Cablevision how to go about getting it done.
The biggest investment was time. Training was provided for free, and as I mentioned we get money back every year as well. I followed up and was ignored.
What I didn't understand was the abuse that was doled at the next meeting for trying to bring a simple idea to help people who can't get to Council meetings to see what is going on.
It was circuitous. I didn't make any sense. Watch the video and see for yourself.
For someone who says they had their own program, was a mentor for students I don't understand why this idea was not immediately embraced as being helpful to the town. Especially on behalf of the young people to learn something about government and technology.
This would be at little or no cost to the Town. Maywood set this up for $3,945. A camera for under $299 is what I use.
However, it does require vision, motivation and a desire to help people, rather than control them. So that's why I record these meetings and put them on YouTube.
This is also done in Maywood, RiverEdge and several other towns according to a March 2012 newspaper article in the Community news. (see below)
Although doing it the way Maywood does compromises quality ( e.g. birds eye view), it does serve the purpose of a bird's eye view of openness in government.
Questions for discussion as a citizen : Is it worth using the money we get back to have better quality than what have now? Can we see if students want to record the council meetings for some kind of credit?
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