State-wide Open Government Honorees Include South Orange Village President

** For Immediate Release ** September 23rd 2012 **

South Orange, NJ - This weekend, a handful of open government advocates were honored by the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government. South Orange Village President Alex Torpey was one of those honored in the ‘Political Leader’ category, the others being Kenilworth Mayor Kathi Fiamingo and New Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg. The other categories were 'Citizen Activist' and 'Journalist.'

South Orange, which is often in the news for its arts and cultural events and model walkable downtown, is also hailed as one of the leading-edge municipal governments in New Jersey for its transparency initiatives, including easy online access to government documents like agendas, minutes, ordinances and resolutions, presentation of thorough budget information, and active participation by residents on various Village committees.

More recently, and with the help of the Village’s new administrator Barry Lewis, the 2011 municipal budget was released publicly as an Excel Spreadsheet, which gained praise from several groups in New Jersey and nationwide including the ACLU and New Jersey Senator Loretta Weinberg. This standard budget format allows third party application developers to create online citizen-government participatory budget platforms, which are currently being explored by the Village. Additionally, Board meetings were re-structured, with the addition of a second public comment period, to ensure members of the public can comment both before and after the Board takes any action, and to require that more information (budget impact, narrative history, committee discussion) be submitted with any item to be added to the public agenda for discussion or action.

Other initiatives include a website redesign which is expected to kick-off before the end of the month, exploring ways to file OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests, village services requests and more on the website or from a smartphone. Additionally, the Public Information and Marketing Committee, an advisory committee compromised of residents and key community partners, like Seton Hall University and the South Orange Performing Arts Center was recently re-started after years of dormancy.

Trustee Howard Levison, who is expected to serve as the committee’s trustee liaison, remarked that "There are a number of projects that enhance our communications and transparency we have wanted to work on, and having resident input will be valuable in assisting us with these various projects."

Village President Torpey thanked his predecessors and staff for their commitment to transparency, "We could not be doing what we are now without the groundwork laid by previous village presidents, trustees and other village officials. We are in a great position in 2012 to become one of the, if not the most, transparent municipal government in New Jersey. Hopefully by telling our stories - our challenges and our successes - we can encourage other towns to modernize and improve how open they are, often in ways that actually save taxpayer expense."

Trustee Deborah Davis Ford commended Torpey and agreed of the importance of transparency and “the critical role our village staff have played in helping implement these initiatives.”

South Orange Village Hall 101 S. Orange Ave South Orange, NJ 07079 973 378 7715 x2 www.southorange.org

TOWNSHIP OF SOUTH ORANGE VILLAGE

Village Clerk Robin Kline was also present at the open government workshop hosted by NJ Foundation for Open Government this Saturday, and was thanked by President Torpey to applause of the room for her hard work and initiatives towards modernizing the Clerk's Office and helping make South Orange more transparent.

President Torpey reiterated the importance of collaboration getting these projects done: "Since getting elected, I've personally tried to connect with people over social media, by creating brief video updates of Board meetings, hosting weekly office hours and posting more information on our website and in local media, but the real long-term meaningful changes are coming from our entire South Orange team working together for the goal of finding new ways to connect our government to our residents."

The other recipients, in the category of citizen activists are: John Bury of Union County, Frances Day of Morris County, Veronica Silkes also of Morris County, Michael Pierone of Warren County and David Burnett of Glouster County. This year’s sole recipient in the category of journalists is Fred Snowflack, editorial writer of The Record, of Bergen County. 

For more information please contact Cathy Cameron at 973 378 7715 x2, visit southorange.org or follow South Orange on Twitter @SouthOrangeNJ. 

 

South Orange Resources:•Find Open Budget information: http://www.southorange.org/budget/budget.asp

•Apply for the Public Information & Marketing Committee (or any other committee): http://southorange.org/volunteerApply/volunteerApplication.asp

•Find government documents: http://southorange.no-ip.org/weblink8/browse.aspx

•Find meeting videos: http://www.southorange.org/videoViewer.asp

•Follow South Orange on Twitter: https://twitter.com/southorangenj

•Find Village forms online: http://www.southorange.org/formsnapps.asp

South Orange Village Hall 101 S. Orange Ave South Orange, NJ 07079 973 378 7715 x2 www.southorange.org