Watch Local Government... Whenever You Want To.
...as I was saying.
After a not-so-brief hiatus, I'd like to try and re-purpose this blog to better serve our community. And I want to start off by trying to help make local government more transparent. Here's how:
By providing on-demand access to videotaped meetings of our local government boards, trustees, commissions, etc.
Most of you may already know that our public entity board meetings are broadcast locally, via on-air and/or cable. PUB, BISD, Port of Brownsville commission, and UTB-TSC board meetings are aired at various times on the BISD's channel, KBSD (cable Ch. 17). Cameron County Commissioners Court airs on KMBH (over-the-air Ch. 60/cable Ch. 10). The Brownsville City Commission meetings air on the City Access channel (cable Ch. 12).
Though not promoted near enough, the times these meetings air are, more or less, the same each week. As I understand it, the staff at KBSD is responsible for recording all of the aforementioned board meetings, except the County Commissioners Court. I assume each entity archives copies of their meetings; but all the public has so far had access to, at any one point in time, was the most recent one. So if they miss the broadcast of it, they miss it. Period. (the public library used to keep tapes of city commission meetings available for checkout, but they've since slacked off on their archiving and what they have is woefully out of date.)
Well, that doesn't have to be the case with those videos anymore. Not when Google and their video storage system can host and serve them. Free of charge. On any website (like Cafe Brownsville). So instead of waiting for them to get their collective acts together, we're going to attempt to record, digitize, and upload as many local govt. meetings as possible. We've already got a few of them from 2005 and will put some of them up to see how it goes. And you can watch them whenever you want to. Maybe even comment on them. It should be interesting.
Here's a video of the Port of Brownsville Commission meeting of June 1, 2005.
After a not-so-brief hiatus, I'd like to try and re-purpose this blog to better serve our community. And I want to start off by trying to help make local government more transparent. Here's how:
By providing on-demand access to videotaped meetings of our local government boards, trustees, commissions, etc.
Most of you may already know that our public entity board meetings are broadcast locally, via on-air and/or cable. PUB, BISD, Port of Brownsville commission, and UTB-TSC board meetings are aired at various times on the BISD's channel, KBSD (cable Ch. 17). Cameron County Commissioners Court airs on KMBH (over-the-air Ch. 60/cable Ch. 10). The Brownsville City Commission meetings air on the City Access channel (cable Ch. 12).
Though not promoted near enough, the times these meetings air are, more or less, the same each week. As I understand it, the staff at KBSD is responsible for recording all of the aforementioned board meetings, except the County Commissioners Court. I assume each entity archives copies of their meetings; but all the public has so far had access to, at any one point in time, was the most recent one. So if they miss the broadcast of it, they miss it. Period. (the public library used to keep tapes of city commission meetings available for checkout, but they've since slacked off on their archiving and what they have is woefully out of date.)
Well, that doesn't have to be the case with those videos anymore. Not when Google and their video storage system can host and serve them. Free of charge. On any website (like Cafe Brownsville). So instead of waiting for them to get their collective acts together, we're going to attempt to record, digitize, and upload as many local govt. meetings as possible. We've already got a few of them from 2005 and will put some of them up to see how it goes. And you can watch them whenever you want to. Maybe even comment on them. It should be interesting.
Here's a video of the Port of Brownsville Commission meeting of June 1, 2005.
posted by Chris Davis at 1/14/2006 12:35:00 AM
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