BY MICHAEL OLOHAN
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
ENGLEWOOD, N.J.—An effort to “livestream” Englewood City Council meetings via the internet met with positive response from council members but exactly how it will get done and how to involve local high school students were questions raised at the March 5 workshop session.
Livestreaming is defined as broadcasting content—such as a meeting or event—as it occurs over the internet.
Borough Clerk Yancy Wazirmas said a part of Gramco Business Solutions, Clifton, that handles audio recording maintenance for the city, also offers a livestreaming system for council meetings with an option to record the meetings, and later upload the videos to the city website. She said annual cost for such services was estimated at $7,000.
Wazirmas said she favored the system because it would enable her to quickly provide a copy of a meeting video if requested.
Over the last year, a group of residents have been attending meetings with a cell phone and tripod to livestream council meetings via Facebook.
Several times the cell phone batteries have run low, or drained completely during not-unusual three-hour-plus meetings.
Over the years, residents have regularly urged the council to record and broadcast meetings so that citizens can watch debates on issues as well as monitor council proceedings when they are not able to attend.
OPRA requests?
Wazirmas said that as city clerk she needs to be able to make a copy of any livestream broadcast and to provide it when a public records request under the Open Public Records Act, or OPRA, is submitted.
Also, Wazirmas said once a recording of the livestream broadcast is made, it can be uploaded to the city website for viewing by anyone interested in watching.
Both Mayor Michael Wildes and Councilman Wayne Hamer urged Wazirmas to consider involving students in the process. Councilman Charles Cobb also wanted students involved in assisting with and learning by livestreaming of meetings and uploading to the city website.
Hamer suggested contacting the city’s cable providers, such as Verizon or Spectrum, to inquire whether either offer any services or resources to record and broadcast meetings.
It was unclear what option would work best to involve students and also enable the city clerk to fulfill legal obligations for public records requests.
One nearby community that broadcasts on cable public access, records and offers a publicly-accessible online archive of council and school meetings—along with other community events—is Tenafly.
Tenafly videos online
While Tenafly does not currently broadcast meetings “live” on public access, it generally schedules meetings to run on public access Channel 77 within 24 to 48 hours after and posts the video online within a week.
A full line-up of council and school board meetings is posted online at Tenafly High School’s Lalor Library Media Center.
For nearly 20 years, high school students have taken a course titled “Media, Television and Video” while learning video production techniques and are offered a variety of on-camera and off-camera roles.
Students generally manage recording and production for government meetings, and because meetings are posted online, few requests for copies of videos have come his way, said Supervisor of Library Media Services David Di Gregorio, who manages the high school course and video productions.
Tenafly Borough Clerk Lissette Aportella said that she has received no requests for videos of Borough Council meetings. She noted that under OPRA guidelines, an audio or video record must be kept for 80 days after a summary or transcript of the meeting (i.e. minutes) is approved.
Di Gregorio said he would be happy to share specifics about Tenafly’s high school video production program with Englewood school personnel if interested.
Efforts to reach Englewood schools’ superintendent Robert Kravitz were not returned by press time.
