Englewood established a tentative timeline to electronically
provide streaming audio of city council meetings and to place the
complete city council packet on the Web site.
Mike Flaherty, deputy city manager, explained the timeline at
the March 23 city council study session.
He said all the equipment for streaming audio is in place and
plans are to test the equipment internally using digital recording
from the March 23 city council meeting. The tests will only be
available to staff and members of the city council.
Provided all the equipment works well for the test, the digital
recording from the April 6 city council study session and meeting
will be available to the public as streaming audio on the city’s
Web site at www.englewoodgov.org.
Once the streaming audio project is successfully completed,
plans are to proceed to make the city council packet available
electronically on the Web site.
Currently, only the agendas are posted on the Web site. However,
the city council packet includes information on each agenda item,
background information on issues as well as the resolutions or
ordinances scheduled for council vote.
The electronic packet will include all the background
information the council members receive. The only items that won’t
be available to the public is any confidential items such as a
personnel report on an individual or the city attorney’s opinion on
a pending league issue.
The test run for posting the full electronic packet is scheduled
for mid-April. The timeline is to have hard-copy packets delivered
to council members on April 16. The following day, April 17 the
electronic version of the full packet will be posted on the city’s
Web site.
Provided the April 17 electronic packet posting is successful,
plans are to regularly post electronic packets for the city council
meetings and the study sessions on the city Web site.
This process began in February when the city council asked the
staff to look at providing the streaming audio and electronic
packets.
Staff members looked at the issue and determined the city
already had the equipment in place for both projects.
The city routinely prints city council meeting and study session
packets for council members, staff and the press at a cost of about
$25,000 a year. Flaherty said printed packets will continue to be
made available for council members but the introduction of
electronic packets should cut the printing costs nearly in
half.
