Brian Redden, left, and Dave Hirst, volunteered their time and technical expertise to conduct a test run of videotaping Trent Hills council during their recent regular meeting.

Council sees this as one more step to communicating with residents

Article & Images by Sue Dickens

Campellford – Live streaming of the Trent Hills Council meetings is coming as the local politicians bring another method forward for communicating with constituents.

A test run was conducted at the recent council meeting on Nov. 20th with technicians Brian Redden and Dave Hirst who have the expertise to carry this off. They volunteered their time and equipment for the test run.

“I think it’s a great step forward,” said Trent Hills Mayor Bob Crate, to Trent Hills Now.

“It came up as an idea at council and it something that used to happen in the past,” he added.

It was determined that the live streaming of council happened back when the late William Baker was mayor, from 1978 to 1980.

The local cable company carried the live feed.

In fact this is not a new idea. Municipal councils in a lot of places are offering a live feed to their proceedings, back then and now. The City of Quinte West has live streaming of its council meetings.

Councillor Cathy Redden spoke about the time back in the late 1970s when cable TV presented council meetings live for viewers.

Longtime Councillor Cathy Redden told Trent Hills Now that when the cable company changed hands the live streaming ceased.

“That happened when we became Trent Hills,” she explained, talking about when Trent Hills was created in 2001 through the amalgamation of the municipalities of Campbellford/Seymour, Percy Township and Hastings

“I believe it is an excellent idea. It was done live on cable, no editing whatsoever,” she added. “We got to the point we didn’t even notice they were here.”

Kira Mees, Trent Hills’ community development officer, said, “We’re just testing it right now. It is a challenge in that we have rotating meetings (two different locations).

“Ideally when we have a permanent space the infrastructure will be built in so it will be seamless,” she added.

Mayor Crate spoke about this more during question period when asked by the media to go into more detail.

“I think this is all part of our commitment to the public to try and make everything more transparent as far as this council goes,” he said.

“If people aren’t able to come to a meeting they can watch it. I think it’s far easier to do that than to try and go through the minutes of a meeting,” he added.

Mayor Crate also said, “So I just think during the last (election) campaign there was a lot of discussion about the public wanting more access. I think this gives that to them and gives them the opportunity to bring forward any concerns they have about what’s going on.”

When pressed by local media as to when this will happen, Mayor Crate responded: “I don’t’ think we have a timeline yet. Today was an experiment to see how it goes and I would hope that we can put something in place fairly quickly to do it…It’s a work in progress.”

He added, “It doesn’t work here because of the beams in this room (Clock Tower).”

He also mentioned, as Kira had, that the time frame may coincide with the completion of the new council chambers to be located in the new fire hall.

This past year council introduced an Open Forum which allows anyone at a meeting to comment on matters on the agenda of the day.

As well the traditional questions from the public remains on the agenda at the conclusion of every council meeting.

Northumberland County’s Municipalities’ Setup:

In Northumberland live streaming or video taping varies from municipality to municipality.

Cobourg Council meeting and public meetings are available in HD format and streamed live through the towns’ YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh-rsT-cCjLrMPGdOobYzHQ

The Municipality of Brighton had a discussion in September 2017 about plans that would be put into effect for video recordings of open meetings to be recorded by municipal staff and hosted on the municipal website, through the CivicWeb portal. Live streaming was to be made available through a link on the front page of CivicWeb. That hasn‘t happened yet.

However at the moment there are audio files available at: http://calendar.brighton.ca/audio/Index?StartDate=07/01/2018&EndDate=12/31/2018#

Hamilton Township Council has audio/video recordings of their meetings whether it be regular council, special council or committee of adjustment. The links can be found on their website at: https://hamilton.icompasscms.com/content/audio-video-recordings They are uploaded to YouTube.

Port Hope Council has a communications page and offers a link to a live video of the most recent council meeting, committee of the whole and special meetings and others. Port Hope has a YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MunicipalityPortHope

The municipality’s communications page is at:

http://www.porthope.ca/council-communications

Alnwick-Haldimand Council meetings are available in terms of agendas and minutes on their website etc. but they do not video tape or record the sessions

Cramahe Township which has a new website lists its meetings as do all municipalities. Cramahe has confirmed it does not livestream or videotape its meeting.

Northumberland County Council

Trent Hills Now contacted the county’s media officer to find out if they live stream or videotape their council meetings. The answer is that the County does not currently tape/live stream Council meetings, “however we are currently examining different methods for doing so.”