Councilor Cary Africk Calls For More Transparency In Montclair Government

Town Councilor Cary Africk may be a part of the Montclair Town Council, but says he wants local government to be more transparent.

Africk is proposing a series of changes to the way Montclair's public meetings are publicized and says he will begin working to implement those changes this summer.

In an email to Patch, he said that agendas are sometimes not published on the Township's Web site by the Friday before a regularly scheduled Tuesday evening meeting of the Town Council. He said, without elaborating, that often resolutions and ordinances are not made easily available to the public. Mostly, though, he said that not all Town Council meetings are taped live and in their entirety.

"Basically, I am of the mind that the more residents know, and see, of the workings of government the better off we will all be," he said. "People will see what occupies our time, and most important hopefully come to an appreciation of our challenges. And people will see things that are vital to the community."

Africk said he hopes to put forth a resolution requiring that any and all Town Council gatherings be televised live. Currently regular meetings are broadcast on local public access TV channel 34 but not all conference meetings.

"Some people, both within town government and outside, have suggested that people will 'perform for the camera'," he said. "They'll use TV to'posture,' as if they were running for election. They will hesitate to say what they really believe. Indeed enough people have said this that so far I haven't even been able to get a 'second' in order to put my resolution on the agenda."

When asked about Africk's claims, Mayor Jerry Fried said that the entire Town Council agreed earlier this year that it would be best to add a monthly Conference Meeting "upstairs" so that the Town Council would be able to discuss policy decisions while avoiding the public posturing that often occurs when members of a governing body are performing for a camera.

Generally, the Town Council meets in an upstairs room at 205 Claremont Avenue prior to the start of the Council's regularly scheduled 8 p.m. Tuesday evening meetings held in the first-floor Council Chambers.

Regularly scheduled meetings are held on the first and third Tuesday of each month.

"This year we instituted these meetings and my feeling is that the Council is able to function more effectively because of them," Fried said. "All meetings are open to the public but there is merit in sitting around a table without being broadcast into people's homes."