BOE Could Start Broadcasting Meetings

Board of Education President Thomas K. Belding said he and Superintendent Dr. Michael LaSusa met with Chatham Borough officials to discuss the possibility of recording and broadcasting board meetings.

The school and municipal officials "discussed a number of possibilities for shared service agreements and/or shared resources," Belding said.

Chatham Borough Mayor Bruce Harris, Administrator Robert Falzarano and Council Member Gerald Helfrich, the latter of whom is an alumnus of the Board of Education, said they had the ability to broadcast DVDs of meetings onto their public access channel, Belding said.

Board Member Al Burgunder asked whether the BOE would have to move their meetings from the Chatham Township Municipal Building, where the district rents space from the township for their home office, to the Chatham Borough Municipal Building.

"Something [borough officials] expressed was that in the borough, their meetings are often on the same night as our meetings, and so it would be nice to find a way to broadcast our meetings," LaSusa said.

"We never talked about potentially having our meetings in the borough. It was more about being able to find the staff to record the meetings," LaSusa said.

Tom Salvas operates the cameras for the Chatham Township Committee meetings. Bill Nauta, the borough's OEM coordinator, operates cameras for the Chatham Borough Council meetings.

The School District of the Chathams has no one on staff whose job it is or would be to operate the cameras, Belding said. Students might be interested, but the meetings often run late into the night or even the early morning hours.

The discussion is still a preliminary one, Belding said, and nothing has been decided. Belding said the board will continue to look at options for broadcasting the meetings.