A review of the websites for the 21 municipal governments in Union County, New Jersey shows that three — Hillside, Plainfield and Winfield – don’t bother to post on their municipal websites the minutes for their governing body meetings. For another municipality – Elizabeth — the most recent set of minutes on its website is for a city council meeting in June of last year. Two more municipalities – New Providence and Roselle – most recently posted minutes for borough council meetings held this spring.
Plainfield’s municipal clerk advised NJFOG via email that the city is “working through the kinks with the IQM2 minute track software, and effective January 2015, all future minutes will be posted.”
The chart below ranks the 21 Union County municipalities based on the currentness of their governing body’s public meeting minutes on the municipal website as of November 22, 2014. The highest ranked municipalities are those which have the most recent minutes posted to their sites. The table’s second column hyperlinks to the page where each municipality’s meetings minutes are stored or, for the towns that post no minutes online, the municipality’s home page.
It is important to emphasize that this was a study in online access and timeliness. There was no review of the minutes themselves and therefore no consideration given in the rankings to the quality of the minutes or whether they meet the recording standard for public agencies. That’s another project altogether.
Town Garwood Union Kenilworth Cranford Linden Westfield Mountainside Roselle Park Scotch Plains Springfield Fanwood Summit Clark Berkeley Heights Rahway New Providence Roselle Elizabeth Hillside Plainfield Winfield |
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Latest 18-Nov-14 28-Oct-14 22-Oct-14 21-Oct-14 21-Oct-14 21-Oct-14 07-Oct-14 02-Oct-14 23-Sep-14 23-Sep-14 16-Sep-14 16-Sep-14 15-Sep-14 26-Aug-14 11-Aug-14 12-May-14 10-Feb-14 11-Jun-13
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Credit: John Paff