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Web Broadcast for Council
2/07/2007
Streaming video goes live Feb. 13
Move over, YouTube, the Novato City Council is going live online next Tuesday night.
In a move to make public meetings more accessible to the public, the city will air Council meetings as they happen starting Feb. 13.
Planning Commission meetings are next: they could go live as early as March.
“We are very excited to offer the City Council meetings live via the Internet,” said Mayor Jeanne MacLeamy. “This is the first step to improve the city's website and better serve the public.”
The public is underserved in this case; approximately one-fifth of Novato households do not receive the correct cable signal to watch Council meetings live.
As an added bonus the meetings will be archived with a menu that allows jumping from item to item as easily as flipping through chapters in a book. The service is provided through Granicus, Inc., a San Francisco firm specializing in live and on-demand media content, enables about 220 municipalities to broadcast meetings live over the Internet.
“Our company is firmly committed to improving public access and transparency,” said Granicus spokesperson Lauren Alexander. “What's really great about this particular account is it's the first city in Marin County. ”The Marin County Board of Supervisors already streams its meetings live, with archiving capability.
For Novato, this is just the beginning.
The Jan. 29 Council meeting is already online through a link at the City's Web site, www.ci.novato.ca.us. “We were using that meeting as training,” said City Clerk Shirley Gremmels.
Thom Adams, a Management Analyst with the City of Novato, was on hand at the last meeting, learning how to bookmark agenda items using a laptop computer. Setting up for video streaming and archiving took some coordination. “Novato Public AccessTelevision's signal is taken, processed through our encoder, and sent to San Francisco,” he said. “Then, when you're getting it live, it's coming back from them over the Internet.”
Granicus provided the technology platform and training for the service under a $44,473 contract signed last summer. The contract covers set up and training, and a $1,450 monthly management fee. The monthly fee is based on the city's size. The Novato Advance tried out the video system, which uses Windows Media Viewer as the video vehicle. The right of a split screen shows the agenda, with PDF documents carrying details of agenda items.
A pull-down menu allows users to jump to separate agenda items.
Novato has also purchased software called Minutesmaker, which will take some pressure off Gremmels. For years the City Clerk has taken minutes in shorthand, then had to type them up for public record. With Minutesmaker she will type minutes in live.
“It can go up on the Web site in a few hours,” Alexander said. “We're facilitating what would take two weeks otherwise.”
About Granicus
Founded in 1999, San Francisco-based Granicus, Inc. helps government reach staff and constituents without barriers. Public agencies trust our webcasting solutions to enable vital improvements to public access, staff efficiency, and government accountability. In addition, the combination of webcasting with public meeting management technology into a single workflow decreases administrative costs and simplifies public recordkeeping tasks. Granicus serves more than 400 governing bodies in 44 states, building close connections with more than 30% of the American population.
Contact
Lauren Alexander
Corporate Communications Manager
415-357-3618 x1788
Rob Mitchell
