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Belmar Meeting Schedule Change

The borough has announced a new, truncated meeting schedule for now through the end of summer:

May 1, 2014
May 20, 2014
June 4, 2014
July 1, 2014
August 5, 2014

Wha?  Why so few?

You know, I think that if they’re going to cut the number of meetings in half, we should cut their council stipends in half.  After all, the only people who benefit from this change are they themselves.  If anyone in the public doesn’t want to attend a meeting they don’t have to.  But the members of the council are required to go.  Also the clerk, administrator and heads of the police and public works are supposed to be there.  Maybe we should dock them all a day’s pay for each cancelled meeting including January’s, February’s, March’s and April’s cancelled meetings.

This reduction in the meeting schedule comes on the heels of a recent policy change whereby the public’s participation in the public comments session is limited to “comments” only.  Because it’s not called the public comments and questions session, no questions will be publicly answered.

For years I’ve been arguing that when the subject is good government, less is more.  But the only reductions we’ve seen from this government are in accountability, transparency, receptiveness, communication and in its appetite for interacting with the public at large.

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