From The Canton Repository After some debate, city council moved forward with legislation that would require meetings of the Planning Commission and the Zoning and Building Standards Board of Appeals to be live streamed and have audio and video recorded digitally.
Council passed the first reading of two related pieces of legislation, one for each board, that would change how those meetings are recorded. Currently, the clerk of those boards creates a verbatim transcript of the meeting. The legislation would have the clerk create a meeting summary and in addition to the digital recording, have a back-up recorded on cassette tape.
Much of the debate centered around eliminating the verbatim transcript in lieu of a meeting summary.
There is value to meetings being recorded in a verbatim transcript, said Councilman Doug Foltz, Ward One, adding that he’s in favor of live-streaming and digital recording alongside the transcript.
“It’s historical and I don’t want to lose that.”
He suggested looking at other options, such as working with the schools, for transcription if the work was too much for one clerk.
The legislation looks at the best way to record meetings in the future, not the past, said Councilman Mark Cerreta, At-Large. The recorded meetings could be transcribed in the future using the recordings if someone wanted a transcription, he said.
Council also debated how long those records should be kept.