Selectmen to Look Again at Live Streaming Idea

When the Board of Selectmen meets Wednesday night, it will once again discuss the idea of live streaming and archiving its meetings.

If selectmen go forward with the idea, the town could use a service to provide live streaming of Board of Selectmen and perhaps other meetings over the Internet. The meetings would then be archived and residents could watch them later, even using a “tagged” agenda to instantly skip to the sections of a meeting they are most interested in.

“It’s got a lot of capabilities,” Chief Administrative Officer Robert Skinner told selectmen at their last meeting.

The board has discussed the idea for some time but now has fairly good cost estimates from a recent “request for proposal,” which asked companies to detail the cost of such an operation.  And at its last meeting, Skinner detailed some of the options offered by Discover Video, a Wallingford-based company.

Skinner reviewed some of the costs associated with the service.

“One-time” costs for items such as cameras, encoding and publishing software, microphones, cables and installation would be nearly $5,000 but the town should be able to use state Local Capital Improvement Program  grants to cover those items, Skinner said.

Annual costs would be roughly $2,000 in the first year for 300 hours of video and as much as $3,000 in the second year, depending on usage. The 300 hours is cumulative, so older meetings would eventually have to be archived on disc or a different server, Skinner added.

Some of the costs can vary a little depending on how sophisticated the system is but selectmen seem to be leaning toward a single mounted camera controlled by a laptop, rather than multiple ones that could require more sophisticated controls.

Even at the $1,995 annual cost next year, the board would have to find some additional money since it only put $1,200 in its 2011-2012 budget for the project. And the budget still needs Board of Finance and voter approval, although selectmen would be able to determine where any cuts in funding would come from.

At Wednesday’s meeting, selectmen will look at the numbers again but most selectmen expressed initial support for the idea at the last meeting.

“It allows people to go back and more easily research the issues,” said Marc Cerniglia.

“If it allows some citizens to participate where they didn’t before I think there’s some value to that,” Cerniglia added. 

Fellow selectman Bruce Lockwood also spoke in favor of the idea and said the cost is fair.

‘I would support the proposal going forward,” he said.

One selectman who has not favored the idea is David Gilchrist Jr. At the last meeting, he said interest would be low and he can’t see very many residents tuning in to meetings. He said selectmen also turned down some worthy proposals during the budget season. 

“It’s a colossal waste of money,” he said.

Other selectmen said they agreed that “live” viewership would be low but still felt it was a valuable asset.

First Selectman Richard Barlow said the public would have additional access to board proceedings.

“I think it’s well worth the investment,” he said.

The board’s meeting will take place in the community center at 7 p.m.