ATHABASCA- Athabasca council is considering recording their meetings in the near future for public access.
At the regular town council meeting on Aug. 12, Coun. Jon LeMessurier proposed to council that recording meetings would help raise more awareness within the community and get more families engaged with the council.
“I appreciate when the county does it and while I’m putting my son down to sleep, I a lot of times will go on and watch the meetings. I think it’s just another avenue to try and keep our community engaged,” said LeMessurier.
Coun. Sara Graling disagreed with the proposal due to other important priorities and her belief that the council is very transparent about when meetings are taking place.
“We have printed minutes, our meetings are open to the public, which is very accessible to me. The county has maybe 8,000 people and if I look at their last series of meetings, they have views of 27, 33, 71 and 21 views,” Graling said. “So just to me, I don’t think that is really a priority from a budget standpoint."
Other conversations that went on during the meeting were about how much this would cost the council to make happen. Mayor Rob Balay explained that if it is going to be an $80,000 investment, then he probably would not support it.
Coun. Ida Edwards had a solution that instead of video recording, the council could do a podcast recording. The council just updated its TV system in the council room, so it could be part of the cost factor.
“I need a little bit more information. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. It’s not committing to it, it’s committing to a conversation about it,” said Balay.
At the end of the discussion, council passed a motion to get more information when the proposal is brought up in budget deliberations. Five voted in favour and Graling and Coun. Edie Yuill voted against the recorded meetings.
