A Win for Public Access: Newport to Live Stream City Council Meetings

A little more sunshine will be shining in Newport City Hall (or wherever City Council meetings are being held) after the council last week voted to sign a contract with Cranston-based ClerkBase to stream and archive video recordings of City Council meetings.

The annual contract will cost $6,000 and comes with a one-time startup fee of $2,495. For people who relied on the now-defunct Newport Record website to watch recordings of City Council meetings, it’s a small price to pay for direct access to city meetings that are usually held at night when most people are having dinner and trying to steer children towards bedtime.

The Open Government Video Project began in 2009 with the town of Jamestown. Over time, it expanded to include Newport, Portsmouth and Middletown. The project was an experiment in providing citizens with better access to video recordings of town meetings and ended after five years at the end of 2014. As the organization stopped operating, it urged cities and towns served by the service (Newport, Jamestown, Middletown, Portsmouth, Tiverton) to pick up where they left off.

Portsmouth resumed archiving meeting videos earlier this month and now Newport joins the growing list of Rhode Island communities investing in online video recordings of meetings.

The ClerkBase deal will not only offer archived and searchable recordings of meetings, but also live streaming of meetings, immediate Internet updates, and time-stamped video linked to agendas and minutes. Want to hear City Councilors debate an issue before voting on an agenda item without sifting through a three-hour video? Just click on the agenda item and you’re right there.

In a memo to the City Council, Acting City Manager Joseph J. Nicholson Jr. recommended the city go with ClerkBase in part because it would be an addendum to an existing contract. ClerkBase currently provides the city with hosting services for agendas and minutes and video streaming can easily be added.

The funds for the video streaming service will come from the Archival Trust Fund, Nicholson said.

The City Council asked city administration to look into hosting video recordings of meetings in January.

Other than the former Newport Record, the only way for residents to watch council meetings would be to catch broadcasts on public access offered by Cox, which has a cable monopoly on Aquidneck Island, or watch a DVD at the Newport Public Library.

In communities that offer live streaming and video archives of meetings, officials typically find that it cuts down on the number of inquiries and public records requests and eliminates the question of whether a media report or published quote is taken out of context or inaccurate. It also gives the public a chance to watch deliberations for themselves instead of relying on a newspaper or media outlet, which often omit details in a lengthy discussion for time or space reasons.

The recordings also provide a “valuable historical resource,” according to the January directive. With a video record easily accessible online, statements made by politicians out on the campaign trail or the question of “what did he or she say back then” can easily be checked out with a few clicks.

Live streaming of town meetings is already happening in Narragansett, South Kingstown and North Kingstown.