WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Township Council passed an amended version of the Township Identification Card Program ordinance on first reading at its Sept. 19; the previous version of the ordinance had been voted down unanimously at the Sept. 5 meeting due to desired changes and a legal issue — specifically, the ordinance that had been published on the town’s website was different from the one on the Sept. 5 meeting agenda. The revised ordinance passed 4-1, with Councilwoman Michelle Casalino casting the only opposing vote.
The ordinance, if it passes on second and final reading at the Oct. 3 meeting, will create a program for West Orange residents to obtain identification cards that will display their full name, photograph, home address, date of birth, gender, height, eye color and signature. The card will make admission to services like the town pool easier for immigrants and members of the community who don’t have easy access to verifiable forms of identification.
Members of Essex Rising, a local social action group, are proponents of the identification card program, but they expressed concerns in both the Sept. 5 and Sept. 19 meetings about protecting the privacy of those receiving the card, as well as which documents will be accepted as valid proof of residence. Matt Dragon, speaking on behalf of the group at the Sept. 19 meeting, said the group prefers for the information on participating individuals to be kept private rather than be stored with the township.
“I know that the town has gone further than other towns by not having a database of people who receive this ID and that the data is being automatically deleted after it’s sent to the card company to print the ID,” Dragon said. “But the concern is, without the language about confidentiality and that the information will be protected, anyone reading the ordinance won’t see that that confidentiality is a key piece of the ordinance. The lack of the confidentiality piece in there now would make it so that Essex Rising and immigration advocates and lawyers would not be able to recommend to their clients to get this ID.”
Dragon also made reference to an earlier version of the ordinance that said the police department would be able to accept the municipal identification as a form of ID, which was taken out of the version that passed at the Sept. 19 meeting. He stated that even though there was no legal reason for the police to be mentioned in the ordinance, it would give peace of mind to those receiving the identification if it were included.
“Again, in terms of reassuring people who are getting this ID and helping explain specifical ways this ID will benefit someone, having the police department specifically referenced as someone who will accept the ID (is) important,” Dragon said. “Taking it out legally does not change the ordinance, but the messaging associated with having it in there and making it clear to people considering the ID that the police department is going to be accepting of it is important to the folks of Essex Rising.”
One element from the previous version of the ordinance that was voted down on Sept. 5 was allowing expired documents to be accepted as proof of residency.
“That’s a big red flag,” Casalino said at the Sept. 5 meeting, citing other municipalities like Newark and Union City who have similar programs. “I can’t accept anything saying we would accept expired documents. I have a big issue with that because all these other cities are asking for valid ID. All of that is being asked for by cities, so I can’t imagine why our township can’t ask for the same.”
Dina Mansour, a representative from the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, attended the Sept. 19 meeting to speak on the subject and give examples of what other towns like Newark and Perth Amboy have done to pass municipal ID programs. She also explained how accepting expired documents would be helpful to people seeking an ID.
“I wanted to speak to how important that is, to include and allow for people to give expired documents because some communities are maybe unable to afford to revalidate their documents or maybe they are just unable to get an ID,” Mansour said. “The reason we’re doing this is to give folks access to IDs who might not have had it. If you really want to reach all the community members that you’re hoping to with this ordinance, you should include that because you might lose a couple of folks that way.”
Members of the council also took issue with some of the language in the first version of the ordinance, which was rewritten for the Sept. 19 meeting.
Assistant township attorney Kenneth Kayser explained the language at the meeting, saying, “All township departments means all township departments,” referring to the reason the police department was not mentioned by name in the revised ordinance. “You don’t have to say ‘including the police department.’ That’s just extra language that doesn’t belong in the ordinance. I promise, the police department, as a department of the town, has to follow this law like everybody else.”
Kayser also addressed the confidentiality concerns expressed at the meeting, saying that the best way to keep the information of municipal ID card recipients private is not to keep records of it at all.
“We’re not going to maintain any records of this stuff,” he said. “I understand the fear, I understand the concern about law enforcement getting these records and using them for purposes that aren’t intended here. The best way to protect against that, as far as I can see, is not to have records at all.”
Kayser said the vendor that manufactures the identification cards will be instructed to destroy the information after creating the card.
Casalino voted against creating the identification program because she believes that the town can work with the recreation department to help people without identification get access to town services.
“The deeper I look into this the harder it gets for me,” Casalino said at the meeting. “It’s not that I don’t want to help our residents, but I feel strongly that instead of going towards a municipal ID … I feel more comfortable changing our policy with the recreation department and to work with our residents with getting into the pool and our rec programs as opposed to offering an ID system that the county and the state won’t recognize.”
A public hearing on the municipal identification ordinance will be held at the council meeting on Oct. 3. The council will vote on the ordinance on second and final reading the same night.
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