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City to use YouTube for recordings
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By CHUCK CLEMENT, Staff Reporter
| 06/05/2012 |
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Officials currently have plans to make YouTube the main conduit through which city residents can watch recordings of Madison City Commission meetings. Recordings of city commission meetings started showing up on YouTube this week with links to the May 29 and June 4 meetings available at the homepage for www.cityofmadisonsd.com. Madison Mayor Gene Hexom said officials decided to make the switch from broadcasting city meetings through the cable public-access channels due to technical problems that occurred last week. The recording for the May 29 city meeting that was broadcast broke down about halfway through the meeting and the last half of the meeting was erased.
To broadcast the meetings on cable TV, Knology, a local cable service provider, typically received a DVD recording of each city meeting. A second recording was typically also sent to another local cable provider, Midcontinent Communications.
According to Hexom, the one-day delay with last week's city meeting -- which was due to the Memorial Day holiday -- meant the DVD recording arrived at Knology offices a day later than usual. When Knology personnel attempted to broadcast the May 29 meeting on the cable channel, the recording was lost about halfway through the meeting and it was erased.
Hexom said city officials decided to discontinue broadcasting the commission meetings on the public-access cable channel. Other complaints about sound and picture quality had arisen during the past year.
"There's nothing wrong with the equipment at City Hall," Hexom said of recording equipment in the commissioners' meeting room.
Hexom added that he and the commissioners always prefer to have any questions or comments from the audience come from the visitor's table and through its microphone, and not from the audience seats in the room.
Jeff Heinemeyer, city finance officer, told the commissioners on Monday that meeting recordings will go onto the city's website. In addition, city officials have kept recordings of city meetings in storage and they are available for viewing. However, officials don't allow those recordings to leave City Hall.
Jennifer Eimers, assistant finance officer, said the meeting video and sound should go onto YouTube by noon the day after city meetings. City staff members should also keep a month's worth of meeting links displayed on the cityofmadisonsd.com website.
Hexom said city officials wanted to improve how the meeting recordings were handled because the cable broadcasts were beyond their control.
"If there are other options available, we could also look at those," Hexom said.
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©Madison Daily Leader 2013
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