PACKET EDITORIAL, March 13
As a rule, elected officials especially those at the local level do not suffer gadflies gladly.
Just about every town council, township committee, school board or other public body has at least one the angry citizen who shows up at every meeting, asking pointed questions, sometimes disrupting the proceedings by hurling outlandish accusations and insulting epithets at the people charged with conducting the public’s business.
For the most part, the officials try not to let the gadflies get their goat. But sometimes, when the rhetoric really heats up or the accusations are especially outrageous, they strike back. And every once in a great while, they either toss them out on their ear or have them arrested for disturbing the peace.
That’s what happened to Robert Tarus, a gadfly in the Camden County community of Pine Hill. And Tina Renna, an outspoken critic of the Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders. And Clara Halper, whose family is involved in a dispute with Piscataway Township.
What all three of these self-admitted troublemakers did in response to their less-than-cordial treatment at the hands of public officials was to show up at a subsequent meeting with a video camera. And what the officials did in all three cases was to deny them the right to videotape the proceedings.
Mr. Tarus took Pine Hill to court. Initially, a three-judge appeals panel dismissed his claim, saying the state constitution does not give citizens the right to videotape public meetings. But the state Supreme Court disagreed. The state’s highest tribunal, reaffirming a 1984 decision that allowed a local teachers’ union to videotape a school board meeting, termed Pine Hill’s decision to bar Mr. Tarus’ video camera "arbitrary and unreasonable."
Chief Justice James Zazzali, writing for a unanimous court, had this to say: "Openness is a hallmark of democracy a sacred maxim of government and video is but a modern instrument in that evolving pursuit. The use of modern technology to record and review the activities of public bodies should marshal pride in our open system of government, not muster suspicion against citizens who conduct the recordings."
Score one for government of, by and for the people.
We acknowledge that we’re not disinterested bystanders in the debate over videotaping public meetings. While our reporters generally don’t carry video cameras with them to these meetings, they do bring tape recorders, laptops, notebooks and other means of preserving the proceedings for posterity.
And they, like the gadflies, resent it when public officials try to prevent them from doing so. Admittedly, that doesn’t happen very often. And truth be told, our reporters and the gadflies (who are sometimes the only two people in attendance at public meetings) aren’t always kindred spirits especially when the meetings drag on and on, eventually deteriorating into embarrassing shouting matches that are neither civil nor newsworthy.
But Chief Justice Zazzali is right openness is a hallmark of democracy and if preserving the right of a sometimes less-than-sympathetic victim is the price we pay to keep our democracy open, it’s a price worth paying. We applaud the Supreme Court’s ruling, and hope that those whose rights are protected by it will exercise them responsibly and productively.

