Lakewood's Township Committee has been meeting virtually ever since the onset of the pandemic.
At the beginning of 2023, the Township Clerk explained that the Open Public Meetings Act permits meetings to be held by communication equipment at any time, even prior to the health emergency.
"During the public health emergency many municipalities availed themselves of these provisions and the Governor, via an executive order, gave additional guidance on how virtual meetings should be conducted. Although the health emergency has concluded the Township is permitted to continue to follow that guidance," the Clerk further explained.
Mayor Ray Coles has also stated numerous times that holding meetings virtually affords residents more opportunity to participate as they can submit public comments via email prior to the meeting as well. Additionally, holding meetings virtually benefits committee members who can attend even when they are not in town. For example Deputy Mayor Menashe Miller was able to join meetings even while on deployment.
Another possible explanation for continuing to meet only virtually was to cover for the fact that Committeeman Mike D'Elia was absent this entire year.
At their recent public meeting, Central Avenue resident Avi Gordon questioned Mayor Coles, "now that no longer need to cover for Mike D'Elia's absence as he is being replaced by a new member, will you resume in-person meetings?"
Mayor Coles responded, "that we will discuss at a future point. For now I am just focusing on getting through the remainder of this year."
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4 comments:
Basically he means never unless enough people make a stink about it
@akiva
so lets start making a stink.
The question should be why can’t you have the in person meeting while still allowing people to send in questions via email as well? There are monitors there which could be used for any committee member to attend via teleconference when they have a good reason not to attend in person. These are just simple things that could be applied or tweaked to make them work if the township really wanted to go back to live meetings.
How often is menashe miller there? he's on the air force base practicing Sholom Bayis.
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