The City Manager has announced that City Council meetings will now be available on-line, greatly increasing citizen participation and government accountability.
"I am pleased to inform you that the City will now offer a live stream on its website of all meetings and events that are currently broadcast 0n the Government Channel. In
addition, archived videos of these meetings and events will be available for viewing 24/7 on the website. The live feed will begin at the Tuesday, January 6, 2009 City Council
meeting and all archived meetings will be availaibe for viewing beginning with the City Cooncil meeting of November 18, 2008."
Earlier: Worcester Indymedia & WCCA TV 13 Mark One Year Anniversary
Ashland, Oregon City Council Mtngs. on TV for years
For many years now the local access television, Rogue Valley Community Television, has been broadcasting city council meetings. Also available on cable TV are meetings of the Medford City Council and the Jackson County Commission, too.
Here in Ashland we have a high level of civic engagement its not uncommon for residents to watch a council meeting at home on TV and if the topic gets hot & heavy...people will run down to the council chambers to make testimony.
On December 16, 2008 the City of Ashland took up our resolution for a sweat free Ashland. This was for the procurement of uniforms and other garments and we passed a plan that will move us towards becoming "sweatfree" Look at this story on the Rogue Valley IMC... It has directions for viewing the council mtng. and seeing our Ashland Sweatfree Campaign make testimony to the council. Ashland also archives its meetings and has them available on the city web page...
"City Council Votes for a Sweatfree Ashland"
http://rogueimc.org/en/2008/12/14309.shtml
Finally!
Finally!
Yeah Worcester!
Way to make a Worcesterite proud! Yay transparency and informed participation!
Luving how the city pats itself on the back.
City Manager OBrien writes:
"I wish to extend my thanks to Mr Covello and his staff as well as Ms Warren and Ms Jacques of the Cable Services Division for their support and technical expertise Due to
their efforts the City of Worcester continues to be recognized as a progressive leader in
technology and e government initiatives"
What a joke. Progressive leader? Try ansering our emails or sharing documents or encouncouraging our abilty to critize city government.
No one cares
The meetings are already public and on TV twice. They are gauge-your-eyes-out boring, and it's rarely worth anyone's time to comb through them looking for that one thing the T&G missed. Volunteers have been posting these meetings online for almost a year already. Many of them have zero views.
http://worcesteractivist.org/wiki/Category:City_Council_Meetings
If someone comes up with a creative way to get people involved, then we might get somewhere with this.
I disagree
Nick, Worcester's still in its infancy on this kind of stuff. [a whole different discussion] Sitting down with some popcorn to watch 2+ hrs of City Council is never going to be a worthwhile recreational pursuit. But, we need to develop ways to digest these meetings, ways to either pull out or flag key parts.
Because there is so little compiled info out there about which way City Councilors have voted on issues, video clips will potentially carry some weight this next election. Several Councilors stood strongly for street vendors (Rushton, Rosen, Germain) while others were hostile (Palmiere, Lukes, Haller). The same can be said on the police public records debate which documents Councilor Rushton's work for transparency and Councilor Haller's efforts to undermine.
Come election time, folks will return to the tapes.
I hope you're right
but, I'd wager money that you're not.
People don't do this with the cablecast or the existing on-line video. There's no more incentive to do anything with the video than before it was officially sanctioned.
We'll see
I think our job... Indymedia et. al., is to show some of the things that are possible and hopefully inspire folks.