This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

Lights, Camera, Action? Village Board Still Searching for Answers on Broadcasting Meetings

Members of the Oswego Village Board agree that filming and broadcasting their meetings would provide a valuable service to residents. What they don't know is how to best accomplish that goal.

Scott Volpe knows that it's not always convenient for residents to attend the meetings of Oswego's Village Board of Trustees.

He also knows that the village would be providing a service to residents if it broadcast these meetings so that constituents could follow village issues without having to attend a three-hour planning commission meeting or Village Board session.

What Volpe doesn't know yet is how the village can best provide this service. But Volpe, a member of the Oswego Village Board and head of its technology committee, is committed to finding out.

"I believe it is important to make government as transparent as possible," Volpe said. "One way to do that is to allow as many people as possible to see how the board conducts business."

Volpe, along with the village's other board members, are studying ways in which to film and broadcast their meetings to residents. Changes in technology, and potentially high costs, make this a complicated decision.

Not a new idea
Village President Brian LeClercq pointed out that idea of filming board meetings in Oswego is not a new one. The board had up until three years ago filmed and broadcast its meetings through the Southwest Fox Valley Cable and Telecommunications Consortium.

But that process became too expensive, LeClercq said, costing the village more than $100,000 a year. To cut expenses, the Village Board voted to end its partnership with the consortium. The consortium today still works with the communities of North Aurora, Plano, Sandwich and Yorkville.

The consortium only broadcast Village Board meetings on Comcast. But many residents of the village did not subscribe to this cable provider. That, too, led the village to sever its ties with the consortium, LeClercq said.

"I'm 100 percent in favor of broadcasting our meetings," LeClercq said. "It's a way to give people who can't attend our board meetings a chance to see what their village government is doing."

Village officials must first determine two things, LeClercq said: They need to find the least expensive way to film and broadcast meetings, and they need to find a method that allows the largest number of village residents to tune in.

Changing technology
In the past, most village boards simply broadcast their meetings via a local access channel available to cable subscribers. That becomes more challenging today. A smaller number of Oswego residents actually subscribe to Comcast today, largely because these residents can choose between that cable provider and competing AT&T U-verse. Other residents subscribe to satellite TV services like DirecTV or DishNetwork, while others don't have cable services at all.

Volpe said broadcasting board meetings through a cable channel also wouldn't serve those residents who want to research a village issue while taking their lunch breaks at work or commuting home on the train.

Broadcasting on Comast is a costly matter, too. The village would need to purchase expensive equipment. Volpe estimates that it could cost up to $200,000 in set-up costs to broadcast on Comcast.

One option is to stream the meetings live through the village's Web site. The village could also disseminate their meetings through downloadable podcasts. Volpe said that these methods have undeniable benefits—they're far less expensive—but that many residents might not be tech-savvy enough to access meetings in this way.

School partnership
The board is looking at forming a partnership with Oswego Community Unit School District 308. Though nothing has yet been finalized, high school students would record the board meetings and edit the resulting video down to a finished product. The village would provide the necessary editing equipment.

Jeff Lawson, a fellow member of the Oswego Village Board, said that he, too, supports airing the village's meetings.

"I am in favor of any means in which the public can view elected officials in action," Lawson said. "So few are able to attend. The more sources of information to the taxpayers, the better they can disseminate the information for themselves."

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?