Three of our five supervisors ran on platforms that promised videorecording of Board of Supervisors meetings, but somehow that isn't happening. BOS meetings are now being recorded for audio archiving.
Someone apparently made the argument that audiorecording is good enough for the county commissioners. As one who follows this issue, I can tell you that the county isn't going the audio route because it's superior to video but because Commissioners Cawley and Martin didn't want video, perhaps out of fear that unflattering clips might be used in the state-level political campaign Mr. Cawley recently waged. Is there a single other township that is recording audio only?
How are we supposed to know who is speaking unless we are well acquainted with all of the supervisors, their solicitors, engineers...? What about the developers and their teams who come before the board? And compare the difficulty of scanning through to find a particular part of the discussion in an audio versus a video.
There seems to be a feeling that unless we shell out $40K for a video installation, we can't do video, when all it would take is contracting with a videographer to sit on the side like PlumsteadWatch used to do, then post the segments on the township website in clips labeled by topic – old business, new business, whatever... The videographer would use their own camera. The popular Flip video camera only runs about $200.
Then there's unaccountable resistance to taking advantage of FREE Google hosting of the videos. We wouldn't have to view them at the Google website – they can be embedded in the township website.
So how about fulfilling your campaign promises to video the BOS meetings next year? And please don't spend $40K on a built-in system. All you need is someone with a Flip camera and a tripod.
