Gale Brewer Wants Council Hearings Streamed Live

This month the City Council held an unbelievable vote to give the Mayor and themselves an extension on term limits that were instituted by public referendum. During those two days of public hearings before the vote, the only way New Yorkers could see it was by going to City Hall or waiting more than a week to watch a taped edition on public television. Every other major city has webcasting available to their citizens for their Council meetings. The Times wonders why we do not and Councilwoman Gale Brewer (who voted against the term limits extension) has a very good answer.

From The NY Times Cityroom:

A bill proposed by Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat, would require city government meetings — including City Council committee hearings and public meetings of city agencies — to be Webcast and archived. It would be similar to an executive ordered signed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer (who was not known for being a tech-savvy governor) on his first day in office, which mandated that state agencies had to Webcast their public proceedings within six months.

“If we could do it statewide, you’d think we could do it in the five boroughs,” Ms. Brewer said.

Currently, the only way people can watch the hearings if they don’t attend them is through a cable television channel, NYCTV’s Channel 74, which covers more than 500 government events a year, but usually with an average delay of 7 to 10 days after the events. The delayed content from Channel 74 is streamed on the NYC.gov site, but not archived. In addition, there are some shortcomings in the production quality.

“The problem is that you don’t know who is speaking,” Ms. Brewer said. “You don’t know the topic. You don’t know what is going on. And because there is only one camera, I could be talking and the camera is on you.”

It’s somewhat embarrassing that New York seems to be one of the only major cities (if not the only major city) not on the Webcast bandwagon.

This isn't the only embarrassment for the Council, but it is certainly one that should be addressed. Kudos to Gale Brewer for making the effort to get this on the table and (hopefully) passed. The Times notes there has been some difficulty noted by webcasters that testified to the committee about it, but as Ms. Brewer notes, anyone can tape something and post it to YouTube. While it isn't as cheap as using YouTube ($0), doing this in a way that responds to the needs of technologically savvy New Yorkers won't cost the city much in comparison to what the city gets from opening up their hearings on the Internet.