Meeting of the planning commission for the registration of citizens' funds

Members of the Gettysburg Planning Commission experienced something new at their monthly meeting last week.

The meeting was recorded by Community Media, which already broadcasts live borough council meetings and work sessions, but not planning commission meetings.

This one was different because it was financed by private citizens and not by the district.

The public’s right to record a public meeting was recognized by Borough Manager Charles Gable. No official intervened in the cameraman’s work.

Borough residents “are welcome and encouraged to attend and provide comments at these public meetings,” he said.

Borough resident Susan Cipperly has commented on planning commission and borough council meetings in recent months, requesting that planning commission sessions be streamed video.

“The planning commission makes the final decision on development projects, not the council,” she said at last week’s meeting.

After repeated attempts to convince local authorities to offer such broadcasts, “the only feedback I received was that maybe it could happen in the 2025 budget,” she said during the period. public comments.

“In the interest of transparency, the governing body, the borough council, devotes more than $6,480 annually to the broadcasting of all” of its business meetings and work sessions,” indicated Mr. .

“Generally speaking, the borough council has not budgeted for the significant costs associated with broadcasting each meeting” of the 10 authorities, councils and commissions sitting within the council, he said.

Since Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act allows the use of recording devices during public body meetings, Cipperly and a group of citizens went directly to community media and paid $270 to have the meeting recorded .

Recording a public meeting hasn’t gone so smoothly in Littlestown recently. During a May 13 school board work session, the husband of one member, Janell Ressler, used a large mirror to prevent another member from recording his actions during the meeting.

Ressler asked the second member, Duane Sullivan, to stop her recording at the start of the meeting, but he refused and Ressler’s husband placed the mirror in front of her.

A member of the public and parent of a Littlestown district student said the mirror was a violation of the Sunshine Act, but the district attorney argued otherwise and the mirror remained.

The Gettysburg citizens group plans to broadcast the next planning commission meeting on June 17 “since the district did not have the foresight to include such a large item in the 2024 budget,” said Cipperly, the city planner from Emmitsburg, Maryland. for about a decade and currently serves as vice president of the Gettysburg Municipal Authority.

A video recording of the May 20 meeting is currently available on the government section of communitymedia.net and on YouTube, both of which became active on May 22, she said.

There have been 39 views on YouTube as of May 28, but there is no way of knowing how many views there have been on Community Media, Cipperly said.