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A Step Toward Broadcasting

By
Christopher Walsh

The twice-monthly meetings of the East Hampton Town Trustees may soon be recorded and broadcast on LTV, East Hampton’s public access television station.

With seven of the nine members of the governing body present at a meeting on Tuesday, the group addressed recent calls by some of the residents who regularly attend trustee meetings, agreeing to contact LTV to inquire about the installation of audiovisual equipment and broadcast of the meetings, which would also be archived on the station’s website.

At the same time, the trustees’ clerk, Diane McNally, acknowledged that the public has a right to record the proceedings on smartphones or other devices, provided they are not disruptive.

At the trustees’ previous meeting, on April 14, several in attendance, including Chini Alarco and Elaine Jones, both of whom live in Amagansett, asked about their right to record the meetings. On Tuesday, Ms. Jones and Diana Walker, who also lives in Amagansett and frequently attends the meetings, again urged the trustees to pursue installation of audiovisual equipment. Ms. Alarco had submitted a letter asking the same, Ms. McNally said.

Ms. McNally read from the state’s Open Meetings Law, which states that “Any meeting of a public body that is open to the public shall be open to being photographed, broadcast, webcast, or otherwise recorded and/or transmitted by audio or video means.” She also read an excerpt of the law stating that a public body may adopt rules to ensure that its proceedings remain orderly. Those rules will be posted and made available to those in attendance, she said.

Consideration of the question to record and broadcast, Ms. McNally said, has been sporadic due to the possibility, as proposed in a space-needs study conducted by the town, that the trustees would relocate to the Town Hall campus. “But as of this date, I have not been asked by anyone what our space needs might be,” she said. Given her belief that the trustees would remain at the Donald Lamb Building in Amagansett for the foreseeable future, and that the town has budgeted money for recording their meetings, “perhaps we should reach out to LTV again,” she said, despite concerns that conditions in the trustees’ cramped meeting room would produce poor-quality recordings.

“It’s not going to be like Town Hall,” she said, referring to the televised meetings of the town board and other town government groups, “but at this point it may behoove us to make that inquiry and see what we can do.” She emphasized, however, that the audio recordings made by Lori Miller-Carr, the group’s secretary, would remain the trustees’ official record.

On Clam Digging

In other news from the meeting, the trustees voted unanimously to allow the hand digging of soft-shell clams throughout 2015. The town code currently prohibits the harvesting of soft clams between May 1 and Aug. 31.

In asking that the trustees use their authority to manage the taking of shellfish in town waters, Nat Miller, a trustee and bayman, said that some of his colleagues on the water had requested a lifting of the prohibition. “You can make a day’s pay,” he said of the soft clams, likening the proposed action to the trustees’ vote last month to extend the scallop season through April.

While the town’s shellfish hatchery does not seed area waters with soft-shell clams, John Dunne, its director, was not opposed to lifting the summer prohibition, Mr. Miller said.

The trustees will determine the effect of lifting the prohibition this year before deciding whether to make the change permanent. Commercial and recreational fishermen must hold a permit to harvest shellfish.

 

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