City of Vincent council meetings to be live streamed

SOON residents won’t have to leave the comfort of their couch to watch City of Vincent council meetings and briefing sessions.

In a move towards greater transparency, Vincent councillors this week agreed to amend its policy on recording meetings to include live streaming on its website at a cost of $16,380 for equipment and streaming services for two years.

There are already sufficient funds in the 2016/17 budget to get started.

Audio recordings are already made and are available to the public for $31 each.

Streaming would exclude public question time and deputations for privacy reasons, despite an attempt by Councillor Joshua Topelberg to have the City support in principal looking into doing it in the future.

Mayor Emma Cole said she wanted to consult with the community before committing to broadcasting gallery members.

Items discussed behind closed doors will also not be broadcast.

The motion received resistance from Deputy Mayor Roslyn Harley, who said streaming briefing sessions was not originally part of the plan.

“I will stick by my guns and I won’t support this,” she said.

“The process is about streaming the council meetings and the decision making and it has turned into something more than I had imagined.

“I don’t think it is a good move at the moment (to stream briefing sessions).”

She said only three people on average watched City of Joondalup broadcasts.

“I think we overestimate how many people are genuinely interested to sit at home and watch,” she said.

Ms Harley said she preferred that money was spent on bookmarking agendas as far back as 2010.

“It would make my job as councillor easier,” she said.

Cost breakdown:

Item Upfront Per Meeting

Cameras and Hardware: $15000

Implementation of web streaming: $7000

Web streaming services: $390