The City of Brookings has officially launched webcasting technology that allows citizens to view city council meetings live and ondemand through the city's Web site (www.cityofbrookings.org).

City officials say it exhibits the latest in government transparency initiatives.

Mayor Tim Reed said Brookings is making strides to increase citizen awareness through live and ondemand streaming. "This is the next step in giving the community the ability to be active with city council issues," he said.

Live streaming of council meetings provides an alternative to inperson attendance, while ondemand recordings give residents the flexibility to watch meetings on their own time from the location of their choice.

During both live and on-demand viewings, residents can access the full meeting's agenda posted alongside the video player, making it easier for citizens to follow legislation and stay better informed.

"This technology is another layer in the city's open government initiatives as a way to engage citizens ," City Manager Jeff Weldon said.

"The new system also improves information access by helping citizens more directly find answers to topics of interest to them."

Hosted by Granicus, the technology allows residents to search archives by keyword, limiting their results to specific mentions within the archived video library. Viewers can also select items from a dropdown box to move the archived video to the requested segment, as well as click on hyperlinked text within the agenda to access that portion of the recording. Archived meetings will generally be available within 24 hours of the event.

The software system will cost the city $10,000 a year, plus a one-time fee of about $10,000 for installation, hardware and training. Granicus, Inc. is the leading provider of government solu tions for improving transparen cy, citizen participation, and community awareness over the Web.

Granicus hosts the world's largest government-exclusive webcasting network, streaming an average of 200,000 government webcasts on a daily basis. Granicus serves more than 600 clients spanning all 50 states and into Canada.



From staff reports