By Megan Kelley
Clarkston News Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
Clarkston – During its meeting on Feb. 26, the Clarkston City Council reviewed and discussed ongoing measures to provide better access for residents to view meetings as well as participate in public participation virtually throughout meetings.
Council also voted unanimously to have city Manager Jonathan Smith look into expanding the use of virtual meeting participation and Independence Television recordings.
“This is something I’ve been working on for months, actually. I’ve been looking at different ways to improve our transparency for various meetings,” said Smith. “I’ve had people ask me, ‘How can I call in? How can I view?’.”
Currently, the city works with Independence Television to record city Council meetings but meetings of the Historic District Commission, city Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals and other committees in the city are recorded using Microsoft Teams.
“Ideally, I think Independence Television would be a great forum to capture the images and sound and video and put those on the website just like we do city Council meetings. But, if that’s not in the cards because of cost then we can just do it through a (Microsoft) Teams meeting and there are record options in the Teams meeting,” Smith said.
The city is expected to continue to utilize the Owl camera that council approved several months ago, just in a larger capacity by having it in place during all meetings.
The camera has been useful in recording meetings because it rotates 360 degrees and can pinpoint where audio is coming from and direct the camera to that spot without needing to be controlled.
“Our new Owl (camera) is working so well. It captures the images in the (Microsoft) Teams meeting as well as the sound and the speaker is very accessible. That’s been a great tool,” Smith said. “I’d like to build on that and make some of our other meetings more transparent.”
As of right now, the public is welcome at meetings to speak during public participation segments that are specifically listed on the meeting’s agenda. However, ways for the public to speak virtually without having to physically attend a meeting have not been put into place. Because of that, Smith suggested implementing virtual participation via Teams meeting.
According to Smith, the Historic District Commission meetings are the meetings with the most interest as far as virtual viewing. Because of that, and because the video and audio quality is far better than Teams, Smith also proposed that they continue to work with Independence Television to record city Council meetings and inquire about having them also record Historic District Committee meetings.
“The idea behind this is trying to make our meetings more transparent. We’re not trying to hide anything. We want anybody that has any issue and they can’t get here to a meeting but they would like to participate, they would like to hear about what went on – it’s a plan that we need to work forward to,” Smith said.
Smith is expected to provide an update on progress toward this initiative in May.