We have long-since applauded the residents of the Town of Westfield for their civic engagement. Most of us here at The Westfield Leader and Union County HAWK have been in this business for a long time and have collectively covered hundreds, if not thousands, of municipal meetings across multiple towns over the years. We can say from personal experience that it is a rarity to see as many people turn out to participate in public meetings as we do in Westfield. People care about this community, and it shows.

Now, Westfield residents are stepping it up a notch. Unless you have ever had to present a project proposal (or happen to work in local journalism), you may not realize that the Westfield Town Council actually holds two separate meetings on the same night — the regular meeting, which is always held at 8 p.m. in the council chambers, and an earlier, slightly more informal session where the council members, the town administrator and other community representatives discuss the evening’s agenda.

Since all of the members of the council are present for both the agenda-setting session and the regular meeting, federal transparency laws dictate that both gatherings have to be open to the public.

Up until recently, those agendasetting sessions have been pretty sparsely attended. That is not a criticism. We get it — everyone is leading busy lives, and it is very difficult to carve out that much time for public meetings.

Over the course of the past several months, however, more and more residents have been turning out to listen in on and, more importantly, participate in, those earlier sessions.

It has been a really great thing to see, and we wanted to take some time to acknowledge the effort that everyone, including the council, has been making to turn those meetings into collaborative conversations.

In recent weeks, residents have used that time to ask the council about upcoming projects, new construction and development, the municipal budget, traffic patterns and community events. The earlier meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. in Westfield, is only an hour long. But while time may be limited, residents have been taking full advantage of the time that they have to ask questions, share opinions and add their two cents to the municipal pot. These meetings give the council members the chance to have more dialogue with residents than they generally do during the regular, later meetings, and it has been a lot of fun to watch that piece of the democratic process play out in real time.

Keep it up, Westfield! Westfield, by the way, is not the only municipality to host separate planning or agenda-setting sessions. Most municipalities, and even the Union County Board of County Commissioners, do something similar. Clark and Mountainside both host workshop meetings on separate nights from their regular meetings, while Cranford holds theirs the night before the public meeting, and Fanwood has a similar model to the one in Westfield with one meeting held right after the other. These workshop meetings or agenda-setting sessions or whatever else they may be called can be a great way to get a sneak preview of what is going on within a community, and we highly recommend that everyone take the time to check one out at least once.