Photo: by emergency bridge at end of Lakeview Terr.





This is the IP's editorial takes Bloomfield's Planning Board officials to task for turning off the camera when a resident dared to videotape the proceedings on Sept. 12. The link to localsource is below editorial.



Wednesday, September 27, 2006 4:11 PM EDT

Reality TV shutdown

If you’re thinking about recording a public meeting in Bloomfield Township, make sure you get the permission of the local government first. At least, that is the message Planning Board Attorney Michael Rubin and Chairman Alan LaQuaglia gave to a resident who tried to record a meeting with a video camera — despite no local laws saying permission is needed.

Geoff Gove was attempting to document a hot local development issue in Bloomfield at a Planning Board meeting. The next phase in his production was recording the public meeting. The local issue was the development of dense town homes at the Scientific Glass site — a topic of controversy for the past several years. “I followed both of the site applications from the beginning and I thought there were many ingredients for an interesting documentary, especially the widespread community opposition,” Gove said. Gove was in the back of the room, filming the proceedings, when the attorney and Planning Board chairman ordered him to stop recording. The attorney told him he couldn’t record a public meeting without the permission of the township.

But there is a slight problem with the opinion of Rubin: if a resident can’t videotape a meeting, why can one tape record a public meeting? Also, if ABC News, Fox News, CNN or any other news station attended a public meeting and used video recorders, would Rubin, the Planning Board chairman or any government official say prior permission was needed to tape the meeting?

It doesn’t make sense that the attorney or chairman would concern themselves with a video recording if the meeting and the issue are being handled in accordance with local and state laws. What, if anything, are they trying to hide?


In fact, Martin O’Shea, a public advocate for protecting and improving the Open Public Meeting Act laws, believes the Planning Board had no justification for denying Gove the right to videotape the meeting. Conversely, Rubin said case law has a “gray area” that could be interpreted to prevent someone from recording a public meeting.



It is hard to determine which side is correct. Certainly, Gove has a very solid case, but we believe the board should have allowed Gove to continue recording the meeting. Again, the Planning Board or any township government body would neither deny or request a major television news station seek prior permission before recording a public meeting, so why make it difficult for the public to exercise that same right, especially when there are no local laws saying prior permission is needed?

Localsource link.. make sure you pick up entire link http://www.localsource.com/articles/2006/10/01/the_independent_press/news/opinion

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