What Does Going Green Mean for Cedar Grove?

Monday’s Cedar Grove Township Council meeting marked a milestone for the township.

It marked the first night council members were able to use their new township-purchased iPads in an effort to go paperless.

Going paperless is an initiative to transfer all paper documents onto electronic devices such as laptops and iPads to eliminate costs incurred by printing products such as paper and ink or toner cartridges.

But what does this mean for Cedar Grove residents?

Printed meeting agendas will still be made available for residents who wish to attend and follow meetings, Township Manager Thomas Tucci said Tuesday.

The township has purchased three new copier-scanners which will allow Township Clerk Kathleen Stutz to keep all records electronically.

While no paper will mean no paper trail, Tucci said it will not affect the transparency of the council.

“All documents can be called up on the computer,” he said. “Once the document is scanned in, all they would have to do is print it out. It's the same methodology, the only difference is that there will be no hard copies archived.”

The township has been working on going paperless for the past six months, around the same time the state announced it will not be accepting any hard copies of documents.

Right now, only the township council will use iPads instead of paper packets but the town hopes to have all governing bodies go paperless in the near future.

By eliminating paper the town will save between $14,000 and $15,000 on paper, ink, toner and man-hours, the council announced during its Monday night meeting.