Announcing My Starting 8 for August

Back in September of last year, I picked up on issues surrounding the status of municipal meeting minutes and agendas for a group of southwest suburbs, including Midlothian, Posen, and Robbins.

Finding need to expand the scope of my research, I stretched out into Sauk Village's public documentation library until I ended up developing a list of 60 municipalities in the State of Illinois to review and track for a while regarding their publishing and distribution habits.

With lots of old information needing new updates before being published, it was with limited difficulty that I have chosen the following municipalities as my Starting 8 for video and audio taping and eventual broadcasting via television and Internet:

Village of Alsip
Village of Blue Island
Village of Crestwood
Village of Markham
Village of Midlothian
Village of Posen
Village of Robbins
Village of Sauk Village

In some ways, this may seem like a long list of meetings to coordinate the act of recording each board/city council meeting and the subsequent distribution of such content in such a short time (August isn't that far away).

However, all it takes is someone making the decision to bring a camera with them and then recording a meeting. It can be a citizen and/or it can be a government official, but as to the rest of the rules and regulations governing the act of recording is part of the old information needing updates prior to publishing anything more about the effort.

It will remain my hope that each of these municipalities will take it upon themselves to produce such critical records, without this current need for a citizen to produce the only copy of the event and with potential legal risks.

Check back soon for more information.