Belle Plaine City Council Meetings Online

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 14, 2010 -- The City of Belle Plaine will officially launch new webcasting technology at the January 19, 2010 City Council meeting. This technology provides citizens the opportunity to watch local City Council meetings live and also on-demand after the meeting. Users can instantly replay captured video of all or part of a meeting through the City's web site, www.belleplainemn.com and clicking on the link on the homepage.

The City of Belle Plaine has made open government a priority by supporting initiatives that enhance communication with our citizens. We are excited about this new web site feature as a further example of our ongoing efforts to provide easy access to the City Council process.

Currently, the local MediaCom Cable Channel No. 8 cablecasts each regular City Council meeting at scheduled times. The video recording of the council meetings are also available at the City’s website listed above.

With the new technology, citizens will now have access to archived meetings of the City Council and will be able to use key word searches through archived agendas to locate items of interest. They will also be able to click on an agenda item and be automatically linked to the portion of the meeting they are most interested in watching. In addition, citizens will have access to the same background reference documents that the City Council considered in making its decisions. These same reference documents are also available prior to the Council meeting on the City website.

It is hoped that this new program will reach out to a greater number of residents and members of the community. This is one of the enhancements that the City has been looking forward to since the launch of our City website.

Archived meetings will generally be available for on-demand viewing the next day. Meetings will be archived and available for viewing for one year from the date of the meeting. The new on-demand service is powered by San Francisco-based Granicus, Inc.

citizen participation     City Council     transparency