Glen Ellyn Park District Weighs Options to Record Meetings

The Glen Ellyn Park District Board of Commissioners are aiming for more transparency. 

To achieve that goal the board is looking to record meetings in 2012, which will allow residents to watch the meetings from home. 

At Tuesday's workshop, the Park District commissioners discussed working with a web-based company that specializes in archiving video footage from government meetings. Granicus already provides service to a number of municipalities and government bodies across the country, including the city of Wheaton.  

To use Granicus' services it would cost the park district between $4,800 to $6,000 annually, in addition to approximately $3,580 in set-up costs, which includes installing a camera in the board room.

The benefit of Granicus services is a double-screen that allows viewers to see the meeting participants on the left side of the screen, while following along with the meeting agenda on the right side of the screen. 

The staff weighed other options, which included airing the meetings on Comcast's local access channel, like the Village of Glen Ellyn's Board of Trustees' meetings. But that would mean excluding 4,800 Park District households, which are outside the viewing area, according to staff. The Park District also considered audio recordings and no video, but for clarity purposes the staff thought it would be easier for individuals to follow a video, especially if diagrams or documents were shown at the meeting. 

The Park District will add this initiative to the 2012 budget, which will be reviewed at a later date.