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Web surfers get look at city business

1/21/2010

Web surfers now can watch West Bend city meetings via streaming video over the Internet

West Bend, WI - In November, the Common Council approved a contract with the Web-hosting service Granicus Inc., San Francisco, to archive and stream videos of city government meetings. That service is now up and running, said Mike Ryan, coordinator of West Bend Community Television, following the first test run of the streaming video system during Monday night’s Common Council session.

“Streaming video of Common Council and Plan Commission meetings on the City’s Web site, is an excellent means by which additional government transparency can be provided to our community,” West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss commented in a written statement. “I am excited about this new feature and know our citizens will appreciate this new avenue of accessibility to local government.”

The contract with Granicus is costing the city $5,775 a year. However, city official estimate there will be a $5,000 savings in service maintenance costs annually because of last year’s upgrade in electronic equipment for WBCCTV. Previously, it cost the city $11,000 annually for service maintenance, Ryan said.

City meetings that can be seen online are the Common Council, Board of Public Works, Finance Committee and Licensing Board (all usually conducted the same evening) and the Plan Commission. Meetings will be streamed live, Ryan said, and will be archived and indexed for convenient information searches. Archived videos will remain available for one year, he said.

These same city meetings have been shown live and recorded for repeat viewings on the local cable access channel for many years. They will continue to be show on the local cable channel, Ryan said. This live websteaming is being done in addition to the cable TV telecasts. Those cable TV channels are Charter Cable channel 99 for analog TVs, channel 987 for digital tuners or TVs, and AT&T U-verse’s Channel 99. Meeting DVDs are also available at the West Bend Community Memorial Library.

Granicus is considered the leading provider of government Webcasting and public meeting software. It now has more than 600 government clients spanning all 50 states, according to information provided by the company.

Granicus, founded in 1999, was ranked 185th on Deloitte LLP’s 2009 Technology Fast 500 list of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunication, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. It also placed 419th fastest-growing private company in America on Inc. Magazine’s 500 list last year.

The San Francisco-based company creates, manages and distributes live and on-demand streaming media content for public meetings, internal training and public education programs for government agencies. Its Web site is www.granicus.com.

For more information on the local streaming video system, call Mike Ryan, coordinator, West Bend Community Television, 335-5157.

Dave Rank