PASCACK VALLEY—Three of the eight Pascack Valley communities broadcast the meetings of local land use boards — planning and zoning boards — either live via the Zoom platform or live on community access television stations.
Whether meetings are available “live” online or archived online for reference can help enhance government transparency and assist taxpayers in easily following up on local developments and planning/zoning issues that affect their quality of life.
However, while a few towns stand out in offering Zoom broadcasts or local community TV coverage, most towns drop the ball in offering live meeting broadcasts, and even worse, fail to set up any kind of historical archive of past planning/zoning meetings.
How a community develops or redevelops often begins with incremental – and sometimes precedent-setting decisions — on land uses, variances and zoning associated with large and even small properties — decisions emanating from the local Planning Board, Zoning Board, and in some cases, a joint Planning/Zoning Board.
‘Live’ Broadcasts of Planning/Zoning
Broadcasting meetings live on Zoom are Woodcliff Lake and Washington Township, while Hillsdale broadcasts meetings live on FIOS and Optimum, and uploads the meetings to YouTube for later viewing by the public. The links to Hillsdale’s meetings are on the Planning Board website.
In Woodcliff Lake, both Planning Board and Zoning Board meetings are broadcast live on the Zoom platform, but are not archived online for future reference.
Planning/Zoning secretary Meg Smith said meeting audio recordings are available if a resident requests them via a public records request under the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Smith said offering the meetings on Zoom offered “a lot more flexibility” so residents could access a meeting without having to attend in-person.
She said due to the Borough Hall’s limited-capacity public chamber, and with Covid concerns, it was unclear when or if in-person public sessions might resume.
She said she understood that the borough administrator Tom Padilla, together with the mayor and council, were looking into other virtual options for Council meetings and possibly later for other local bodies.
In Washington Township, both Planning and Zoning Board meetings are broadcast virtually on Zoom. Residents can access the Zoom links on specific meeting agendas posted online.
At the Feb. 15 Zoning Board meeting, the board voted 6-1 not to upload Zoom video broadcasts to YouTube to create an archive of prior meetings for public access. No explanation for the no votes was listed in the meeting minutes. Only Michael LaGratta voted in favor of uploading the videos for an archive.
Opposing the video uploads were Anthony Capasso, Les Hanna, Said Toro, Jeff Roberto, John Calandrillo and Sean Mahoney.
At the Feb. 15 meeting, resident Stephen Kalish spoke in favor of uploading Zoom meetings to YouTube, a function that he said was built into the current Zoom platform license and required no extra fees or charges.
Kalish said uploading the meetings was a way to make them available to residents and also easy to share with neighbors and friends interested in a specific development application.
The Township Planning Board also broadcasts current meetings on Zoom but does not upload the videos to YouTube for later viewing and public access.
Currently, the Township Council archives its meetings on YouTube, after broadcasting them live on Zoom and community TV, and allows in-person and remote public participation at its meetings.
The other five communities generally offer no online broadcasts of Planning/Zoning board meetings. These include Emerson, Montvale, Park Ridge, River Vale and Westwood.
In Emerson, the borough’s Land Use Board (a combined planning/zoning board) briefly used the GoToMeeting platform during the early pandemic in 2020 but went back to in-person meetings in 2021.
Oddly, two archived GoToMeetings from 2020 posted online would not open when a Pascack Press reporter tried to open them.
The board does not appear on community access TV, either.
However, Emerson does offer posted online audio recordings of its Land Use Board meetings, though as of April 19, 2022, none were yet posted for 2022. Asked about the audio recordings, Board Secretary Marie Shust said the 2022 meetings, six so far this year, would soon be posted.
The audio files are WMA (Windows Media Audio) format.
In Montvale, all Planning Board meetings went back in-person starting on Feb. 15. During the pandemic — as in most communities — meetings were put online since town halls were closed and public gatherings restricted.
However, in May 2021, the board ended its Zoom meetings and moved back to in-person only. Yet by January 2022, due to a Covid spike, meetings were back on Zoom again as the Covid Delta variant spread.
Meetings were no longer offered on Zoom as of mid-April.
On April 19, Park Ridge Planning and Zoning Board Secretary Tonya Tardibuono said they would be holding the first in-person Zoning Board meeting in-person that night, after a long time using the Zoom platform.
She said a couple members had contracted Covid, making it difficult to hold the in-person meeting, However she said the meeting would go on, since to convert back to a Zoom meeting required advance public notifications that could not be done due to a lack of time.
Neither the Planning nor Zoning board has compiled an online archive of prior Zoom meetings that were broadcast for later public viewing.
She said she liked hosting the Zoom meetings, and noted that even given Covid’s spikes, they were hoping to find a way to still include in-person meetings.
She said though the meetings are audiotaped, she could not recall any recent public records request for a planning or zoning meeting audio recording.
In River Vale, the Joint Planning Board (a combined planning/zoning board) does not offer Zoom broadcasts or public access via a cable community TV station.
However, as in most towns, an audio recording of meetings can be obtained from Secretary Maria Haag by filing an OPRA request.
The recordings are available on compact disks that must be read by a free downloadable audio software program called Liberty Court Player. Pascack Press received a half dozen recordings from Haag following meetings over the years.
However, the audio software required to listen to the CDs is often not user-friendly and it’s hard to move from one part of the meeting to another.
Neither the Westwood Planning Board nor the Zoning Board broadcasts online or via community TV. Residents can either attend meetings in-person, or request a copy of an audio CD from Borough Clerk Karen Hughes to access a meeting.
As in every town, minutes from a prior meeting are generally approved at the next meeting, making the outline of what previously occurred available. Generally, minutes do not contain extensive detail. However, they often provide a broad-brush of what occurred and summarize discussions and topics raised.
With Zoom and YouTube broadcasting and archiving growing among towns, plus longstanding public access community television, it appears most towns have a range of options for putting more and more meetings online in one form or another to increase transparency and help residents keep tabs on local governments and school boards.
For our update on what towns and school boards livestream meetings, check out “Reporter’s Notebook: Which towns, school boards livestream?” Pascack Press, April 11, 2022.