ll get to watch town council meetings live online this year as part of a move to give the public better access to its regular meetings.
Councillors voted unanimously April 2 to allocate $4,200 annually towards software to record its meetings and an additional $4,000 to buy a professional recording camera. The Town’s 2018 budget included $7,500 to record and livestream council meetings.
Recorded meetings will be available to the public on the Town’s website and social media.
Just weeks after being sworn in, the new council told administration to investigate the benefits and costs of recording public meetings.
“It was a campaign issue that was brought up within the community as a perceived benefit,” said Mayor Gary Rowntree. “We directed administration to have a look at it and bring back proposals.”
Council approved administration’s suggestion to go with CivicWeb video streaming and archival. CivicWeb hosts its videos on YouTube.
Bridget Lacey, legislative services administrative assistant, told council that CivicWeb’s video encoder and software integrates with the Town’s existing management software and costs $3,400 annually, with no setup fee. A portal interface will cost $800 annually and make accessing agendas, minutes and videos for meetings easier on the Town website, she said.
“With the Portal, the meetings are listed in an easy-to-find calendar,” she said. “You can post any meeting that takes place in the council chambers.”
She anticipates recording will begin in June, but the livestreaming will depend on when the Town office is hooked up to Telus PureFibre broadband, which is being installed in Black Diamond and Turner Valley throughout 2018.
Lacey said Turner Valley currently doesn’t have the bandwidth speed of .5 mbps for livestreaming.
The PureFibre upgrade will provide the town with bandwidth sufficient for livestreaming, she said.
“Eventually this is leading to livestreaming, but right now it’s not an option for us,” she said. “Our uploading speed is not good enough. We currently don’t have the bandwidth, but we can do videos and post it onto YouTube after the meetings.”
Council voted unanimously for the CivicWeb program, yet Coun. Cindy Holladay questioned if it should be a high priority.
“My only concern is how many people are actually going to watch these and if it justifies the cost,” she said. “I wonder if maybe let’s just hold off for a few months, find out how many people are interested in this. Is there going to be only two people who are going to watch this and we are spending $4,000 a year.”
Lacey told council she was told by the Town of Canmore that its council meeting recordings have one to two per cent viewership on live feed, representing about 75 to 150 people, and upwards of 1,000 viewers on YouTube for contentious issues.
“That’s seven to eight per cent of their population accessing it on a contentious issue,” she said. “Live streaming is not necessarily as important as the video recorded archive that people want to watch after coming home.”
Lacey added that having the capacity to display videos on YouTube channels means the Town can post other public meetings online and broadcast emergency messages to the public when needed.
She said many members of the public are comfortable with YouTube and that the quality is an added bonus.
“The high quality of YouTube video steam minimizes buffering and lag time versus embedded video,” said Lacey.
Deputy Mayor Barry Crane said he will be glad to see the meetings recorded and that the CivicWeb program will integrate seamlessly with the Town’s present system.
“The integration and training will be provided free and ongoing tech support also comes at no cost,” he said.
“I really like that.”
