Tuesday’s Township Committee meeting was the last one for Assistant Township Administrator Bailey Barnett, after it was announced that she would be resigning.
“This evening will be Ms. Barnett’s last TC meeting with all of us,” said Acting Township Administrator Gregg Schuster in his report. “We’re very sad to see her go; she’ll be moving on to her next opportunity. We of course wish her the best in that opportunity.”
“She’s been incredibly helpful to me…” Schuster said. Barnett “knew where everything was, where to ask questions and get the answers.” He continued, “I couldn’t have done it without her…So thank you Bailey.”
In brief remarks, Barnett said, “I’d like to thank you all here for the opportunity I’ve had for the past two years. I think I got a lot of great experience here…I’ve learned a lot and it’s been great working with you all, so thank you.”
Schuster did not mention a reason for Barnett stepping down, or specify where she would be moving on to. (Village Green reached out to Barnett for comment; we will update the story if we receive a response.)
Township Clerk Liz Fritzen thanked Barnett for helping her make things run more efficiently, and said she had learned a lot from her. “I wish you were staying longer than two years.”
“We want to thank you for you great service to our residents and to all of our volunteers and our boards and committees, and for shepherding us through all of our meetings during Covid online,” said Mayor Dean Dafis. “It’s been tremendous. We wish you great success in your endeavors.”
Earlier on Tuesday, a filing by representatives of former Maplewood Township Administrator Jerry Giaimis included an affidavit in which Barnett backed Giaimis’s claims regarding Superintendent of Public Works Cesare Riccardi, who was arrested and charged on March 13 on allegations of bid rigging.
At the meeting’s end, Township Committee member Nancy Adams thanked Barnett for everything she’d done during her tenure. “…even being relatively new yourself, you shepherded us through some turmoil, not just from Covid but [from] what’s gone on at Town Hall with our administrator and all these things…You just stepped up and kind of kept us afloat. So that you did not go unnoticed and we are going to miss you.”
This was the third meeting which was plagued with technical issues; this meeting was not livestreamed. The meeting — only the audio portion, not the video — is now uploaded to the Maplewood YouTube page. Asst. Township Clerk Amari Allah responded to an email from Village Green and a resident who emailed to complain about the issue:
First, let me reassure you that transparency is a top priority of the Township Committee. This is why the agenda packet is released to the public Friday afternoons before the meeting, at the same time as the Township Committee, and both the public and citizens receive the same packets.
Regarding having a hybrid meeting, unfortunately, we cannot broadcast to Zoom simultaneously as when the system was purchased, it wasn’t with a capture card/ device. Zoom is not meant to act as an intermediary out of the box but as a host that sends out a feed, hence the issue we had during the first Township Committee meeting in February. We tried to, through the system, have the feed sent out to ZOOM, then to YouTube, and it led to audio and video issues.
Because of that, we started working on cutting the middle man in Zoom and sending the feed directly to YouTube.
Focusing on what is being done, based on last night’s meeting, we spoke to the equipment manufacturer this morning. We reviewed issues from last night’s meeting with them and showed them screenshots we took from YouTube’s backend; they modified the necessary settings this morning, and now YouTube notes the stream is excellent.
It should be noted that regarding the Mayor’s statement of bandwidth issues, all tests, including the current one, were done during normal business hours. It was brought up that there is the potential that our IT company may throttle our internet after business hours. We are currently doing a test in which we’ll have the stream health monitored overnight to see if this is true.
As for backups, meetings are broadcast to Verizon customers on Channel 24, and we’ll be contacting Comcast as it was reported our feed isn’t showing on Channel 35. We are also working with our website host to allow a stream directly to be put on Maplewoodnj.gov directly. Lastly, meetings are recorded and do excuse the quality of last night’s recording. The live stream was linked to the recording, and once the live stream stopped, so did the recording. It wasn’t until the Board of Health meeting was it realized the recording wasn’t on and still set to show the meeting would start soon. There is, however, audio.
