Why not offer minutes and video of smaller meetings? Regular council meetings are televised, which is wonderful, but smaller meetings do fall between the cracks.

In Caldwell, since the meetings are still not available on the local borough television channel, residents are able to read articles - not the straight minutes - of council and other meetings. There is tremendous confusion among residents - walking in town just his week I heard all kinds of crazy rumors that are not true including:

--crossing guards are being fired (NOT TRUE)

--town is taking DOWN stop signs (NOT TRUE)

--temporary appointment to fill Republican seat until November due to councilor resigning went to someone who

won't be attending council meetings (NOT TRUE).

-- $120,000 missing or misplaced from 08 into 09 Caldwell audit: see video that I took, on Caldwells Page - this is an unedited video (not high quality, sorry) but it does the trick. You can hear what happened during that meeting. The rumor? That's it's not a big deal. It is. A town can't just lose $120,000. If it's 'misplaced' we need to know where it is.

Though a much smaller town than Montclair, Caldwell has big communication issues to deal with - until meetings are televised this problem will continue to create rumors and confusion among residents. Caldwell College has been sending a student to film every meeting in its entirety since last winter, so it's time to put these videos of council meetings on television.

West Caldwell does televise, and seems to be doing a good job letting the public in on many issues, but again, if you miss a meeting that is not televised, you need to do your homework and go to town hall and pick up minutes, which will not be immediately available since someone has to type them up.

But another aspect of transparency in local towns includes the police department.

In Monclair, the largest and busiest police department in our area, they are committed to communicating with the public and the press. If I call or email the officer in charge of communicating, you bet I get a reply fast. This police department is willing to let the press - and the public - in on what's happening in their department and in Montclair.

West Caldwell also does a tremendous job in answering questions about safety or police issues - and help with facts. For a much smaller force than Montclair, they keep up with communication.

North Caldwell has a small force, and it's impossible to get answers without calling, emailing and/or visiting numerous times, which is frustrating. They need to do a much better job, especially since residents want to know what is happening with what seems to be escalating burglaries.('seems to be' - I really can't tell you, since I can't get the facts.)

In Caldwell, it is very difficult to find out what's going on. Calls and emails get ignored. I ran a series on pedestrian safety, since the law changed and now you have to stop at crosswalks and not just yield.

The police in Montclair and West Caldwell took a few minutes to explain how their towns fare with pedestrian

safety, accidents, and more. But I still have no idea

(it's been 2 months) what the facts are in Caldwell. I'm not stating this police department, which offers wonderful safety in Caldwell, is hiding anything. But I am stating a simple fact: the public has a legal right to know about safety issues, and must be informed.

As Africk said, it' the 21st century. Answering an email within a few days shouldn't be that difficult.

Information like pedestrian's being hit by cars - which

are probably not very prevalent in Caldwell - should be easy to look up.

As a reporter, this is disturbing. I don't believe the police department in Caldwell is hiding anything - but I do believe they must do a better job communicating.

Transparency is key to a healthy and safe community.

In Montclair the police department puts their police blotter online. Why doesn't every police department do this?

I don't run the blotter here, but if it's online it is available for everyone, and items won't be handpicked by other newspapers to create an unrealistic and frightening story for readers about theft, robberies, etc.

I take President Kennedy's words to heart.

Let's do better.

We have much to accomplish here in our towns,and I'm hoping we can create a positive, lasting change we can all be proud of here in Essex County.