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Lantzville will officially record council meetings

NANAIMO – Meetings will be uploaded via district website for residents to watch.

Residents of Lantzville will soon be able to watch officially recorded videos of council meetings from the comfort of their homes.

On Monday, District of Lantzville council agreed to have meetings officially video recorded and uploaded for public record. Outlined in a recent staff report, council approved audio and visual recording equipment installed at a cost of $15,000, plus an annual operating cost of $850.

Under the selected set up, council meetings will be recorded and uploaded by the district to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Viewers will then be able access the videos on the district’s website. However, viewers will have to manually search through the video to find specific sections of the meeting they wish to watch, as there will be no indexing. There will also be a shared microphone system setup for councillors, staff, the mayor and delegations.

Coun. Denise Haime said having the district officially record and upload council meetings will benefit the public, particularly seniors and others who are unable to attend meetings in person.

“From a transparency perspective this is huge,” she said. “I couldn’t think of a reason as to why you wouldn’t want to do this.”

Council’s selection was described in a staff report as “moderate” and was one of three options. The other two options were described as “enhanced” and “basic.”

The enhanced option would have given council a fully managed live and on-demand streaming of meetings, individual microphones for each councillor, staff and the mayor. Meetings would have been live streamed and available in high definition. The enhanced option had an estimated one-time cost of $28,000 and an annual operating budget of $10,000.

Meanwhile the basic option consisted of a video upload to a district established YouTube account. There would have been no in-house audio and would have required council to purchase a video camera and other basic recording equipment. The estimated cost was $3,000 with an annual operating cost of $850.

Coulson said while the cost of the moderate option was high in his opinion, having audio visual recordings of council meetings was something that needed to happen.

Council meetings are currently recorded and uploaded by Coulson and can be accessed on his website www.lantzville411.ca.

There was no timeline given for when videos would be officially recorded and uploaded by the district.