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BY MICHAEL OLOHAN
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
TENAFLY, NEW JERSEY —— It may be one of the best-kept secrets in Tenafly.
But to local citizens interested in municipal goings-on, it’s no secret at all. It’s a comprehensive online storehouse of every discussion, debate, and comment made by local school board and council officials at almost every recent public meeting held in Tenafly.
And it may come as a surprise to residents not aware of the site: It’s been around since 2005—that’s almost 13 years of recording, compiling and archiving a digital library of municipal government meetings, many available at the click of a mouse button.
Even better, the online videos allow the viewer to search through the hours-long sessions – and find whatever discussion or debate most interests them, avoiding many of the extraneous discussions and details that fill a regular meeting.
Meetings archive
Tenafly residents can easily access the full recordings of almost every public meeting for local school board and borough council meetings at the high school’s Lalor Library Media Center website.
After visiting the library’s site, click on either “Board of Education” or “Tenafly Town Council” to open an archive going back several years.
The site also includes videos of community events such as high school commencements, Tenafly Tigers’ sports events, and high school music and art events.
“Everyone from the mayor to residents to schools outside of our broadcasting area, they’re all happy with what we’re doing and it’s very satisfying to see that what we’re doing is appreciated,” said David Di Gregorio, supervisor of library media services at Lalor Library.
He said often residents he speaks with make positive comments about videos or something else they viewed that they really enjoyed. Most of what library staff and high school students produce appears on Cablevision Channel 77, the local public access channel.
Unusual public service
While most towns covered by Northern Valley Press provide minutes of meetings – some posted online months after a meeting occurred – only a minority provide video or audio recordings posted online in a timely manner.
Tenafly’s site, Di Gregorio says, tries to post meetings within days of recording to make them accessible. While most meetings generate about 20-30 views, others generate more depending on the issues discussed and controversies raised. Commencement broadcasts, he said, draw one of the largest number of viewers.
Since Tenafly began recording and uploading local videos, they’ve had their own servers and do not upload videos to YouTube.
From the start of video production, Di Gregorio said they realized the site “has the potential to increase education of our students and the public.”
High school students help record the council meetings, Di Gregorio said, while Mark Fleming, a library media technician, generally records school board meetings. Di Gregorio said plans are afoot to produce an hour-long program that features different student programming.
He noted that students have been integral to video production and hundreds of students have taken the video production class since it was first offered. One student who graduated in 2016 is interning with WNBC at the Winter Olympics, he said.
Di Gregorio said the library’s video production efforts initially started as a club approximately 21 years ago begun by “one eager student” and a camera donation by WABC.
Donations critical
Since then, Di Gregorio said donations of camera cranes, camera pedestals, TV production technology, a plasma TV, flat-panel monitors and high-end camera equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from WABC, WNBC, and WCBS have helped improve the quality of Tenafly’s high school broadcasting production classes.
Video Production Instructor Steve Moger, who has taught a high school broadcast production club or class for two decades, now teaches four beginning to advanced classes of 20 students each.
“All students in each class take part – all students are responsible for creating packages mostly of their choice to be broadcast within a live production – students also tape sports events, theatrical events, game shows, visiting authors in the library, and on occasion [municipal] meetings,” said Di Gregorio.
For all students
“Basically we had a vision over 20 years ago that we were trying to work towards. Let’s bring something here that is going to make the library more present within the high school and the community,” said Di Gregorio. “You want to expand the function of a library into the future.”
He said the video production classes are for everyone.
“It’s for all the students. It’s technical knowledge, lighting, how to present yourself properly. Even if you never ever go into TV, you’re building different skill sets and all of these experiences are transferable. It’s all valuable knowledge that can be useful,” he noted.
Photos courtesy David Di Gregorio