New Orleans City Council to start broadcasting meetings live on Internet

September 03, 2009

The New Orleans City Council enters a new era Thursday with the first-ever live broadcast of a meeting via the Internet.

The transmittal is part of an effort that will offer -- for free -- real-time videos of council meetings, as well as a searchable archive of prior meetings. There's also a separate video feed for live emergency broadcasts from City Hall.

Live and archived council meetings will be linked from the council's newly revamped Web site; click on the "Video" subtitle near the right side of the page.

Council members on Wednesday touted the service as a boon for citizens who want a front-row seat to the workings of local government, as well as a way for residents still displaced because of Hurricane Katrina to stay connected.

"This will provide exceptional public access and . . . transparency, " Council President Arnie Fielkow said. "City Council business is truly coming to our citizens' homes and computers."

Councilwoman Shelley Midura said the new technology will enable residents to engage with city government on their own time, rather than having to catch meetings live -- or wait for intermittent rebroadcasts -- on local cable-access Channel 6.

"So now you don't have to sit in bed at 3 o'clock in the morning" to watch a council meeting replay, she said. "Now you can do it at 12 noon if you want, on the Internet."

As the new Web interface rolls out, council meetings will continue to be available on Channel 6, at least through the sunset of the city's franchise agreement with Cox, which ends in 2011.

Along with live Web broadcasts, council members vaunted the new technology's ability to archive meetings going back one year and to segment them by keyword so users can watch only the portion of a meeting that interests them.

The council's Web site already offers videos of meetings dating to December 2008.

Video segments are indexed by words in relevant agenda items and in meeting minutes after they are approved. Archived meetings are expected to be available about an hour after meetings end.

In the next six months, agenda items that link to segments of video will be augmented with links to documents related to each item, such as resolutions or ordinances, maps, photos and staff reports.

Meetings of various government panels, such as the City Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustments, are expected to be videotaped using the same system beginning in the next six months, officials said.

Those also will be archived by keywords, and the relevant portions will be linked into the agendas of other meetings so residents can trace issues through the public process.

Using technology created by search-engine pioneer Google, text on the council's new site -- including archived agendas, council members' pages and news releases -- can be translated into Spanish and Vietnamese, though video soundtracks are available only in English.

The system is the brainchild of Granicus, a San Francisco company that provides Web streaming and meeting archives for 500 government clients in the U.S. and Canada. The firm has partnered with Crescent Communications Inc., of Gretna, in what it bills as the first use of its product in Louisiana.

Granicus won a three-year, $266,474 contract last July, after answering a request for proposals. About a third of the deal's cost covered equipment installed in the council chamber and in the mayor's second-floor conference room.

The cost also includes the first installment of an annual $54,000 maintenance fee for the service. Subsequent maintenance payments will be made through the city's government access capital fund, which is financed by franchise fees paid by Cox Communications.

Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell said all cash spent on the project has come from the government access fund. She emphasized that none of the money came from the general fund or recovery projects.

Meeting archives will be maintained both at a Granicus data center and at the city's information technology office, company Vice President Thao Hill said. While the city's contract only allows past meetings to be available on a public Web site for a year, he said the records will be stored indefinitely as public records available at residents' request.

Michelle Krupa

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/09/new_orleans_city_council_to_st.html