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10/02/2019 09:24 AMComing soon to a television near you: Clinton municipal meetings. The Town of Clinton is set to sign an agreement with Valley Shore Community Television (VSCTV) to allow for the recording of town meetings after the Board of Selectmen (BOS) approved a motion that allows the first selectmen to sign a memorandum of understanding for the series at its Sept. 25 meeting.
The meetings will be broadcast on channel 19 and 1070 and Frontier channel 6089. The meetings will also be available online at www.vsctv.com and the town website. Goupil said that there are some logistical issues to work out, but the town will begin videoing BOS meetings as soon as possible.
Per a copy of the agreement provided to the Harbor News, the meetings will be processed after they are recorded but they will not be edited.
“All meetings/events will be shown gavel-to gavel” the agreement states. Once signed, the agreement will run for 180 days, after which it can be renewed.
The service will cost the town $40 an hour with a minimum three hour commitment per recoprding, which includes one hour of equipment set up and breakdown. The first recorded meeting will be free. First Selectman Christine Goupil (D) said the money to pay for this service is already approved in the budget.
The town will inform VSCTV of the meetings that are to be recorded 30 days before that meeting. The town will own all content of the meeting. The cost estimate for using VSCTV to record and upload the meetings is around $6,000 a year for BOS meetings.
Goupil said that the town currently has enough money to video just the BOS meetings, plus some other significant meetings. Goupil said that the town could be interested in filming more commission meetings in the future, and may solicit volunteer videographers to help facilitate that.
The BOS had discussions earlier this month about the feasibility of recording its meetings and broadcasting them to the public. Other towns in the area such as Deep River also use VSCTV to film meetings. In Clinton, citizens may choose to record video of meetings on their own; however those meetings are not always posted for consumption by the general public and, even if they are posted, the recordings may be edited to emphasize or minimize aspects of meetings that are of interest to the person recording and thus don’t always show the meetings in their entirety.
Goupil has said in the past that by recording and broadcasting the meetings in their entirety, it will increase the transparency of the town to its citizens.
“As first selectman, I firmly believe our democracy is based on accountability. Our citizens are only able to participate in our democratic process when they have all information about the activities, finances, and policies of government. The solutions outlined will be part of that accountability,” Goupil said.