You may be able to watch live Sarnia Council meetings online as early as next year.
City council will consider including the live webcasting project as part of the 2017 capital and operating budget when it meets Monday.
Mayor Mike Bradley thinks it's a good idea.
"I would welcome it. If there's no cost issue. Back in 2011, I brought that to city council and was told it was too costly at the time and I'm told that the costs have decreased significantly," he says. "At the time, we took it to county council and were successful. It's a great asset for the public that they can watch the meetings live and actually go back in and pull the meetings out if there are parts they need to see."
Bradley says it's one more way of keeping government open to people.
"It takes a while for people to get used to the live streaming, but its a real asset. Especially in the county, with the size of the county physically, people can watch those meetings and issued that are of interest to them and see what their lawmakers are doing," he says.
Staff say the broadcasting system would cost approximately $45,000 with annual costs, which include online hosting, maintenance, archiving and close captioning, estimated at $15,000.
Council is also being asked to direct staff to update them when additional information and costs are available on different vote recording systems.
