Area town recognized for open govt. efforts

Brick Township came away a winner at the recent New Jersey League of Municipalities convention with a top award for Internet-accessible Township Council meetings.

Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis accepted the Innovation in Governance Award for Records Management in the 21st Century from the state Department of Community Affairs and the League of Municipalities at the league’s annual conference in Atlantic City.

“Anything we can do to let the public see what goes on in Brick Township, we are going to try and do,” Acropolis said, adding that he hopes to someday have Zoning Board of Adjustment meetings, Planning Board meetings and school functions online also.

“It’s a continuation of our thrust into opening up township government,” he said. “That goes hand in hand with corruption. When you put the light of day on actions and people can see what you are doing, there is less of a chance somebody is going to try and do something behind the scenes.”

Brick officials signed a contract with Granicus Inc. of San Francisco in January to make public council meetings available on demand on the Internet.

Council meetings were first televised on BTV20, the local cable television channel, in 2004.

Brick was the first municipality in New Jersey to launch a live and on-demand Webcasting portal powered by Granicus. The company provides local government streaming media solutions. The township paid Granicus $9,640 in start-up costs and pays $684 a month for storage and distribution, system monitoring and continuous software updates for the service.

Public council meetings are archived on the township’s Internet Web site at www.bricktownship.net.

Residents need a broadband Internet connection, not dial-up, to take advantage of the feature and the proper computer equipment.

Residents must have at least a 233 MHz Pentium II processor, a sound card, 64 MB of RAM and a minimum of 56 Kbps Internet connection to be able to access the meetings. Macintosh computers need a G3 system or newer, with Mac OS X installed. A Windows Media Player version 9 or higher is required.

Brick’s award has gotten national recognition, Acropolis said.

“This story has gone all over the country,” he said. “This is big time, getting the township and government into the 21st century. This is much bigger than I thought it was, when national newspapers pick it up.”

The service with Granicus also gives the township the ability to link streaming video with formal public meeting records, to create unified source for staff and residents to retrieve information.

“The award validates the public benefits of expanding public records with live, archived and searchable streaming video of public meetings,” said Sal Baglio, Northeastern regional director for Granicus.