A tie vote will temporarily keep residents who can’t make it to Millstone Township Board of Education meetings in the dark about what goes on there.
The board began discussing taping and broadcasting its meetings on the public access channel last summer. At that time, the township let the board know it would soon have the equipment to do so.
Now that the township has the equipment and is willing to let the board use it, some board members voted March 12 against a six-month trial period of taping and airing meetings.
Some members said they would like to hammer out a policy before permitting the videotaping. We encourage the board to create such guidelines swiftly and to vote on the matter again soon.
Such guidelines could determine that upon advice from the board’s attorney, the board’s administrator could be the person to decide what, if any, edits should be made to broadcast content. The new rules could also prohibit the broadcasts to be used for political purposes.
In Manalapan, the governing body recently developed such guidelines for broadcasts on its cable channel. The governing body defined “political” as anything that advances partisan programming designed more to promote a candidate, political party or interest group devoted to altering public opinion about government-related activities than to inform the public of the township’s activities. The guidelines further state that no governmental function could be deemed political, nor could any programming that the administrator deems nonpolitical involving public information topics or forums of special interest.
We recognize that taking to the airwaves could create some new problems for the board, but we firmly believe that any potential difficulties could be squashed with a sure-footed school board president, who can ensure that the meetings run smoothly along with a good set of procedural guidelines.
Once the guidelines are in place, it’s a moot point for board members to argue against taping meetings, given that the state Supreme Court recently ruled that people have a common-law right to videotape public meetings. So in essence, it’s really a matter of whether or not the board wants the videotaping done on its terms.
To save money on costs related to the taping and broadcasting, the school district should encourage members of the community and any interested students to volunteer to assist with the job.
We believe the school board, which helps govern where nearly 85 percent of local taxes go, has an obligation to be as open as it can with its proceedings. With a new school opening and school costs likely to increase taxes for the average Millstone homeowner to about $8,000 this year, now is the time for the board to embrace the ability to give the public more access to its decision-making processes.