By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
The town of Lysander does it. The North Syracuse Central School District does it. Why can’t the town of Cicero do it, too?
That was the question resident Heather Scott asked at the Cicero Town Board’s July 25 meeting. Why doesn’t the town of Cicero stream or upload recordings of its meetings to the town website?
North Syracuse schools stream the Board of Education’s meetings live, and the district maintains an archive of the videos. Baldwinsville Public Access Channel (PAC-B) films and broadcasts meetings and events in the towns of Lysander and Van Buren, the village of Baldwinsville and the Baldwinsville Central School District. PAC-B’s videos appear on Spectrum channel 98 and Verizon Fios channel 30 and are hosted on the video-sharing website Vimeo.
Additionally, the Lysander Town Board posts audio recordings of its work sessions, which PAC-B does not film, on the town of Lysander website.
Scott, who ran for Cicero Town Board last year, said she had contacted town webmaster David Kirk last year to inquire about posting streaming videos of the meetings, but she said she never heard back.
When she posed the question at last week’s town board meeting, Supervisor Mark Venesky demurred.
“I like the idea. You’re the only one who’s ever brought this up, Ms. Scott, to be honest with you,” Venesky said. “There is a cost associated with servers and having enough room to do that and streaming it.”
Venesky pointed out that Shawn Hunter Horan has been recording meetings and posting them to a YouTube channel called “The People Of Cicero NY.”
“You could link that link right on the website using no space,” Scott said.
“But there’s no way … to verify that these things are not doctored before they go up,” Venesky said. “They’re not town-sanctioned.”
Scott said the town should record every meeting that is open to the public, including meetings of the planning board and the zoning board of appeals.
“There should be no reason [not to post them]. It’s 2018. Everything’s on the internet,” she said. “This should be very, very simple.”
The People Of Cicero NY’s videos of town board meetings can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNF4BE3EyjhE0IQhnE4-vWg/
