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RVC to cease GPC livestreams

Jan14Briefs1
Rocky View County council has decided to livestream council meetings only, while recording and posting the meetings of various boards and committees online. File Photo/Rocky View Publishing

Following a decision by Rocky View County (RVC) council, only council meetings will be livestreamed online, with other committee and board meetings simply being recorded and posted after the fact.

Prior to the decision at council’s regular meeting Jan. 14, both council and Governance and Priorities Committee (GPC) meetings were livestreamed.

“Administration analyzed viewership statistics and found that the average council meeting recording receives around 224 views, and the average GPC meeting recording receives around 80 views,” said Tyler Andreasen, deputy municipal clerk. “However, a large number of these views comes from the post-meeting recording uploaded to YouTube, rather than the livestream.”

Livestreams of the meetings average between five to 15 viewers at any given time, he added. While administration was unable to determine how many viewers were from the public as opposed to RVC staff, Andreasen said it is estimated staff comprise the majority of viewers.

Livestreaming meetings is more complex than just “pushing a button,” Andreasen said, and with the amount of people that actually tune in, there’s more “bang for our buck” to just record and post them.

“Our hardware has to integrate with YouTube, which becomes an issue,” he said. “A lot of our issues are on YouTube’s end, so it is a lot of maintenance after we push the button the livestream it. There’s a lot of maintenance throughout a meeting that happens.”

No change was proposed to livestreams of council meetings, and council voted 7-2 to simply record and upload meetings of GPC and two new bodies – Municipal Planning Commission and Recreation Governance Committee. Couns. Kevin Hanson and Samanntha Wright voted in opposition, with Hanson saying he preferred to see meetings livestreamed as often as possible to encourage transparency.

Council also authorized Assessment Review Boards, Enforcement Appeal Committee and Subdivision and Development Appeal Board to record and upload their meetings, while deciding to not record meetings of the Agricultural Service Board, ALUS Partnership Advisory Committee, Bragg Creek FireSmart Committee and Family and Community Support Services Board.

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