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Erik van de Pol
Citizen
Username: Evdp
Post Number: 4
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 2:51 pm: | 
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My apologies if this is widely known, but what is a good place for accurate and up-to-date summaries of BoT meetings?
It seems that the BoT eventually posts their minutes on the South Orange village web site, but that is only a month or so after the fact (which is a little later than I like). In addition there is of course the video from the BoT, but that's a bit on the long side..
Are there any places where these meetings are summarized (items discussed, agenda, votes), preferably soon after the meeting took place, and/or an subjected to reasonable commentary (meaning objective and fairly neutral  )?
Thanks!
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MHD
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 4426
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 3:12 pm: |
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objective & neutral? No.
However, here is a summary of the July 10 Meeting:
1000 signatures presented opposing the spending of Tax dollars for Tau. Arthur Taylor shutdown the conversation & cutoff people from speaking, thereby thumbing his nose at 1000 residents. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHUFJTw9gA
The BOT got an egg timer & got very good and counting the seconds left for each speaker.
The BOT approved a $3 million bond for change orders for SOPAC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5nM-ImculE
For what it's worth the Minutes for the Meetings are actually posted fairly quickly, considering that someone needs to manually listen to the meeting & transcribe the minutes |
Erik van de Pol
Citizen
Username: Evdp
Post Number: 6
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 3:27 pm: |
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Thanks MHD, yes I got the gist of the last meeting..
I'm very concerned about how our BoT performs, and I'm not sure if people outside of MOL get a sense of the (rampant) problems. At least I'm not aware of any reliable and up-to-date outlet of information.
I would be very grateful if there would be an effort to summarize meetings right after they take place (preferably objective and neutral, but I could live with personal interpretations). Is anybody already doing this, or maybe halfway there? For instance, someone who is already attending BoT meetings and taking relevant notes?
Wouldn't it be great to have an "executive" summary from the board meetings?
Should I stop asking rethorical questions?  |
MHD
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 4428
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 4:03 pm: |
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Erik,
It's a great suggestion. Most of the big issues are discussed here in the days following a meeting, but it can be tough to wade through the "noise". Also, Tracey Randinelli often has a "summary" of the meeting on her blog: http://www.nj.com/weblogs/southorange/ |
SOrising
Citizen
Username: Sorising
Post Number: 504
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 4:58 pm: |
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Erik, it would be a great service to SO residents if you provided executive summaries of the BOT meetings, as you described. You could post them on MOL perhaps (talk to the owners) and circulate them to anyone who would like to receive them.
The agenda for each meeting has an outline of topics to be covered. Of course things arise during remonstrances, as MHD just alluded to when Mr. Goldberg tried to present 1000+ signatures to the BOT for action and was silenced and stonewalled. |
Erik van de Pol
Citizen
Username: Evdp
Post Number: 7
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 6:17 pm: |
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But if I had the time to always attend or watch the entire meeting, I wouldn't be asking for summaries, now would I?
I will however volunteer to do the first one (if there's enough interest), and then someone else can do it after me, and so on, and we'll take turns. It would make sense to have a few people share this burden, no?
So, is there interest in getting meeting summaries (besides myself)?
If I do the first summary and get it posted, who else would volunteer to write up a BoT meeting summary every once in a while, so we can all get a good sense of what is (or should be) going on?
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SOrising
Citizen
Username: Sorising
Post Number: 511
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 10:39 pm: |
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Good idea, Erik, to start it and rotate. Just in the past few days other people have expressed similar wishes (for summary updates of BOT meetings and actions) to me. Maybe some of your friends would help do it after you. We're all in the same boat with limited time. That's why the town is being run so poorly and no one votes. How bad must it get for people to act differently?
If there were enough people, having summaries of the planning board meetings would also be good.
Thanks for thinking of this and doing it. |
Dave
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 10171
Registered: 4-1997
| | Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 11:40 pm: |
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Allow me to handle the initial meeting.
The BoT take their places (the three or four who show up or show up on time) on the dais and begin leafing through still warm laser prints that describe how money not their own is going to be spent on projects and vendors they have but cursory knowledge of. It matters little, really. No one in a sleepy bedroom community of accountants, attorneys and stockbrokers really pays much attention to the minor antics and penny arcade graft. You could set up an Asbury Park nickel grab machine and let the village administrator and legal counsel go at it in broad daylight, lifting out raises, pensions, jobs and unmarked brown envelopes being dropped into open bumper cars in the mirror maze pre-dawn hours and people would pass by unblinking, running to pick up kids at play dates or dropping them at the pool with a few bucks for food and ice cream.
A few people would approach the microphone to speak, trading their name and address for a few minutes of patronizing abuse and indigestion. An egg timer plunking out the designated 180 seconds of questioning gets maximum attention from the bored Art Taylor. Trustee Rosen next to him is performing mental gymnastics on a sudoku, whose numbers, unlike with the budget, must jibe.
The village president, a pharmacist, the business administrator, a former pharmacist, the CFO, a former pharmacist, the Treasurer, a former pharmacist, and legal counsel, a former Trustee, gather in the gloomy environs to shut down and demean citizens who dare to ask questions much like the Nazgul descending on Hobbits in Rivendell.
New dates are offered up as promises for deadlines long past on projects that have long been covered in lichen, mud and weeds. Additional millions of dollars are allotted to projects with scant explanation and a trail of responsiblity that may as well be marked by bread in a forest of starving animals. No word is mentioned of passing $85,000 to a firm that was created prior to an imaginary deadline and shuttered after another imaginary deadline (following the checks' clearance, naturally) and which may or may not have been channelled to someone's close relative now deceased. No one knows. Few care. Federal prosecutors are contacted late in the game, maybe too late, maybe without high enough a price tag to interest justice and the American way.
Future candidates like Janine Bauer hover around the room, phototactic, feasting on something other than light and gaping broadly and breathlessly at finding new ways to suck dollars from residents in the eternal struggle to not leave things perfectly enough alone. Open space being, first and foremost, the warp and woof of a new pocketbook or the confines of a blue plush cube beneath flourescent lights dappled with dead bugs (i.e., a nice new job for a connected someone courtesy of taxpayer Joan Doe).
Trustees bask in a powerful glow of feckless unknowing before a gathering of citizens protesting spending a quarter million plus dollars on a copy of a sculpture of uncertain size destined for a location no one is really clear how they got roped into because no matter what we are an "arts community" and the simple matter of spending money we don't have shouldn't really stand in the way of the arts especially when votes are at stake from a group of people who give campaign contributions. Meanwhile the authentic artistic families in town are bending like silly straws under floated mortgages and are starting to hope junior can grow a bit taller to get one of those athletic scholarships or else it's going to be time for some straight talk about college and living expenses. Maybe they'll move to Sparta.
The evening may conclude with Bill Calabrese summoning the police if attendees get out of hand and try to talk too long or say too many real things or applaud or laugh or exist. But not to worry. He likely has things ready for an easy exit leaving others to laugh last or pay last.
Then the gavel falling bringing to mind anything but good goverment and hinting at nothing else but a sleepy country auction, where anything and everything is for sale.
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SOrising
Citizen
Username: Sorising
Post Number: 513
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 7:53 am: |
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Ah, Dave, but there is tomorrow.....
($95,000 instead of $85,000 I think. But what's 10 grand between friends?) |
Lucy
Supporter
Username: Lucy
Post Number: 4752
Registered: 5-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 8:23 am: |
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You nailed another trustee meeting! How sad but true. |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 735
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 12:39 pm: |
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Can this be distributed, with your consent, Dave?
jd |
Dave
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 10174
Registered: 4-1997
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 1:07 pm: |
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I see a sentence that needs some work, but sure. |
Sitoyan
Citizen
Username: Sitoyan
Post Number: 180
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 2:17 pm: |
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You forgot the closed door session, Dave. |
Howard Levison
Citizen
Username: Levisonh
Post Number: 651
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 2:29 pm: |
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You can read them on the SO WEB site - right. Not released since 2002! |
Pdg
Citizen
Username: Pdg
Post Number: 1020
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 8:57 pm: |
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Dave, that was a absolute pleasure to read! (alas, it is not fiction.)
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