Cameras will be turned off temporarily at City of Nanaimo finance and audit committee meetings.
Residents will not be able to catch videos of the meetings for about a month as the City of Nanaimo suspends recordings to address sound quality.
The finance and audit committee is made up of politicians who meet at the Service and Resource Centre boardroom to talk policies to budget and debt. It’s there, for example, that councillors discussed a proposed tax hike and a new strategic infrastructure reserve. The group makes recommendations to council and discussions have been videotaped.
Recordings stopped Wednesday.
Victor Mema, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer, suggested treating finance and audit like any other select committee – none of which are recorded. He also said the sound is “terrible” and the city is working to make it perfect by bringing in a sound engineer.
“Council has expressed a desire to have all committees recorded so at a certain point we will begin to record all committees, but I am not going to turn that on until I am satisfied with the sound,” Mema said, adding the decision not to record finance and audit meetings isn’t permanent and to give it a month.
Committee of the Whole meetings are also recorded in the boardroom, where the city has installed $43,000 in new video recording equipment. The next COW meeting is in June and Mema hopes to have the sound issue resolved by then.
Neither Mayor Bill McKay nor Coun. Gord Fuller were aware Wednesday’s finance meeting was not recorded, but Fuller said it’s a great idea to get it right and then back and running for all committees.
“That’s something I’ve wanted for a long time,” he said. “It works for me and I think it will work for the people of Nanaimo … it gives people the opportunity to get to know more about the workings of their city by being able to access the videos of all the committees.”
McKay said he’s fine with it and there’s assurances sound challenges will be worked on over the next month or so.
“I just want them to put a professional system in. I believe in having the records. I want to have the records of all the committees and let’s get on with it.”
To view videos of city meetings, please visit its website at www.nanaimo.ca.