GREEN BAY (NBC26) — A near decade-long discussion about more transparency in Brown County meetings. How progress on live streaming county meetings is going slowly, but surely.
- Brown County supervisor Ross Toellner explains the long delay in getting live streamed recordings approved for county meetings.
- The county does not provide video recordings of its meetings. Only the agenda and minutes are available online.
- A new proposal for live recordings ignites reaction on social media platforms.
- Brown County officials plan to meet with a consultant, state officials to ensure proper procedure in closed captioning requirements.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
"Most people are going to say yes to transparency," Ross Toellner, Brown County district 24 supervisor, said.
Transparency and accessibility — Two concepts that Toellner and other Brown County supervisors are looking to add more of in Brown County meetings.
"Do you want something to be live streamed for transparency reasons," Toellner said.
At this time, Brown County does not live stream meetings, which is something already done at the city and village level throughout the region.
The reasoning — Strict state and local government requirements on closed captioning.
"What we have been told on our side and what we're trying to work through is this ability to have 99 percentile accuracy on closed captioning," Toellner said.
Close caption regulations apply for all audio and video content the county produces, from its website to social media.
Now there are new regulations under Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1), which defines how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities.
David Hemery of the county's Corporate Council said in a statement that the focus should be on all aspects of accessibility "..in order to ensure compliance in all required areas, including but not limited to live streaming."
"The minutes that we have are great and that they tell us what was voted and how it was voted on but it doesn't give you an in-depth bit of information on the questions that were asked and how they were answered," Toellner said.
Toellner said the topic has been at the county level for almost a decade.
Discussion on recording meetings was brought up at Wednesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, but was sent back to the Administration Committee for further evaluation.
"It's going to be slow, but I know it will happen," Toellner said. "We just got to find the proper ways to do it."
Toellner said the committee plans to talk with a consultant and contact the state and Department of Justice to gain more understanding of state requirements for public content creating.
That meeting will be on Oct. 10 at 6 p.m.
