When Daily Record/Sunday News correspondent Teresa McMinn asked various townships and boroughs about how they kept meeting minutes for a story that appeared in last Sunday's paper, probably the most, shall we say, creative response came from Hanover borough manager Bruce Rebert.
Among McMinn's e-mailed questions was, "Do you audio or video record your public meetings." On a print-out of the e-mail, Rebert wrote:
"No. Why -- no one has ever requested or suggested same in my 35 yrs. Can you think of anything more boring?! We do post our minutes online to torture the unsuspecting (yes, it simplifies info. requests too.)"
Funny. He's probably right -- watching a video of a municipality's meeting can't be invigorating. But, on a serious note, the point of doing it would be to have it on record in case someone needs it, or to fact-check something that happened at the meeting, or to help a municipal staffer produce the official meeting minutes.
Among McMinn's e-mailed questions was, "Do you audio or video record your public meetings." On a print-out of the e-mail, Rebert wrote:
"No. Why -- no one has ever requested or suggested same in my 35 yrs. Can you think of anything more boring?! We do post our minutes online to torture the unsuspecting (yes, it simplifies info. requests too.)"
Funny. He's probably right -- watching a video of a municipality's meeting can't be invigorating. But, on a serious note, the point of doing it would be to have it on record in case someone needs it, or to fact-check something that happened at the meeting, or to help a municipal staffer produce the official meeting minutes.
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