{"id":11880,"date":"2014-12-17T12:02:01","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T17:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=11880"},"modified":"2015-02-11T18:23:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T23:23:47","slug":"lowndes-countys-own-videos-lcc-2014-12-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/lowndes-countys-own-videos-lcc-2014-12-09.html","title":{"rendered":"Lowndes County’s own videos @ LCC 2014-12-09"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nPaige Dukes told us about this Monday, but why steal her thunder\r\nabout\r\n\r\nthe county’s new website<\/a> and the videos on it?\r\n

\r\nJoe Adgie, VDT, 17 December 2014,\r\n\r\nLowndes County website goes live<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nCounty residents can pay bills, read county ordinances, search for\r\nreal estate and read meeting agendas on the new site.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn addition, a first for the county government, videos of the\r\nLowndes County Commission meetings are also available through the\r\nsite and on YouTube.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Due to schedules,\r\n\r\n not all citizens can attend commission\r\nmeetings,” Dukes said. “Hopefully the availability of\r\nthe video will allow more people to see firsthand the information\r\npresented and discussed during meetings in the event they cannot\r\nattend.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nGolly, I wish we had thought of that!\r\nOh, right:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThis is not the first time that meetings have been recorded. The\r\nLowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, run by John and Gretchen\r\nQuarterman, have recorded commission meetings, along with many other\r\npublic meetings, for a number of years.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAbout four years, actually.\r\nWhich is not long to nag a local government before they do it instead.\r\nAnd I see Carolyn managed not to get named again.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe website will also allow residents the opportunity to have public\r\ninformation such as bids, job offers and meeting information sent\r\ndirectly to them by email or on a mobile device.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nDukes credited the county commission for its directive and Amanda\r\nSmith, Lowndes County Information Technician, for the website, and\r\nher work to make the site useful to the public, and easy to use.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nLAKE thanks the Lowndes County Commission and staff for putting videos\r\nof its own meetings online!\r\n

\r\nHere’s where you can find them.\r\nGo to lowndescounty.com<\/a>,\r\nscroll down and click on\r\nAgendas & Minutes<\/a>.\r\nNotice there’s a column labeled Media.\r\nPick a date, currently only 9 December 2014,\r\nand click on the little TV icon in that row and column\r\n(I think it’s supposed to be an old-style broadcast TV set with rabbit ear\r\nantennas, for readers who are not familiar with antique technology).\r\n

\r\nThe one you’ll get now is\r\n\r\nLCBOC Meeting December 9, 2014<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\"300x189<\/a>\r\nIt’s one big 36 minute and 55 second lump, but hey, way better than nothing!\r\nAlso notice a label appears in the lower left when each agenda item starts:\r\nthat’s quite useful.\r\n

\r\n\r\nAnd the county has at least five cameras which you can see being used\r\nin their videos.\r\nThese include three at the back of the room,\r\nand whatever is being projected on the screen behind the Commissioners,\r\nso you can actually see the maps they’re projecting.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"300x166<\/a>\r\nAnd a camera that can show Planner, Finance, and IT on the left.\r\nIncluding insetting them along with a map on the screen.\r\n

\r\nPlus one facing the podium where audience members speak.\r\nThat’s right, no longer are you limited to the backs of their heads:\r\nyou can actually see the audience speakers when they speak!\r\n

\r\nPerhaps the best part, they also have a camera on the staff on the\r\nright, Public Works, Engineer, and Utilties.\r\nNo longer can the County Engineer hide behind hsi monitor when speaking!\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"300x167<\/a>\r\nThe Commissioners, for that matter, are fully visible despite\r\ntheir monitors, because the Commission’s cameras are mounted high\r\non the wall, just below the ceiling.\r\nThey’ve been there since the building was opened years ago.\r\nLAKE’s been asking ever since when they would be used to video\r\nmeetings and put them on YouTube.\r\nFinally, it’s happening.\r\nSee how much better the video quality is when it’s done\r\nby paid staff with multiple cameras in good locations\r\ninstead by amateurs with one camera\r\n\r\nexiled to the back of the room<\/a>?\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhere is the county’s Work Session video, you may wonder?\r\nIn the description on the YouTube page for the Regular Session, there’s this:\r\n

\r\nTo view the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Work Session Meeting on Monday, December 8, 2014 please use the following link:\r\nhttp:\/\/youtu.be\/0s2Fo7aed5I<\/a><\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAlso, immediately under the video title, there’s a link labelled\r\n\r\nLowndes County Board of Commissioners<\/a>,\r\nwhich leads to the county’s YouTube channel, on which you can\r\nsee all their videos (so far only these two).\r\n

\r\nSo, we’ll check videos off the long LAKE list of things Lowndes County\r\ncould do for more transparency.\r\nGood thing I didn’t know about this Monday; I would have had to thank\r\nthe county four times instead of just three (more on that later)….\r\n

\r\nBut don’t worry, Paige, staff, and Commissioners, there are more things\r\non that list!\r\n

\r\nIn addition to\r\n\r\nthe website requests Gretchen already made<\/a>,\r\nlet’s add a request for a list of times in each video\r\nfor when each of those agenda items starts.\r\nThat would make blogging much easier.\r\nTo illustrate, item\r\n\r\n7.b. Resolution Opposing the Sabal Trail Pipeline in Lowndes County<\/a>\r\nis at 15 minutes and 40 seconds in the Regular Session video.\r\nFor comparison, see\r\n\r\nLAKE’s video and writeup<\/a> of that item, which includes a direct\r\nlink to the LAKE video of the item, text about the high points of what\r\nhappened, and a link to the resolution itself.\r\n

\r\nThese county videos were posted 12 December 2014, which was the day\r\nthe website went live.\r\nCan we see the videos of the Work Sessions posted before the Regular Session?\r\nVolunteer LAKE has been doing that for years,\r\nso no doubt paid county staff can do it.\r\n

\r\nFor that matter, Glynn County<\/a> not only posts online,\r\nit live streams meetings as they happen.\r\nLowndes County could do that, too.\r\n

\r\nWhile Lowndes County still provides its agenda only in PDF form,\r\nmany local governments provide a set of links from their agenda directly\r\ninto their videos, item by item.\r\nLowndes County could do that, too.\r\n

\r\nBoard packets<\/a>: can we see them on the county’s website before the\r\nmeetings that use them?\r\nAugusta-Richmond County links each board packet item directly into its HTML agendas<\/a>.\r\nAlso\r\nChatham County<\/a> does that.\r\nThe Lowndes County and Valdosta Boards of Education\r\nlink board packet items directly into their agendas<\/a>.\r\nLeon County, Florida and Tallahassee each\r\n\r\ndo that<\/a> plus video online within a day of the meeting.\r\nTravis County, Texas does all that plus\r\nit links packet items, videos, and transcripts<\/a> directly into its minutes.\r\n

\r\nOh, and how about press releases?\r\nThe county might have seen their website in the Sunday VDT\r\nif they’d put out a press release on Friday.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paige Dukes told us about this Monday, but why steal her thunder about the county’s new website and the videos on it? Joe Adgie, VDT, 17 December 2014, Lowndes County website goes live, County residents can pay bills, read county ordinances, search for real estate and read meeting agendas on the new site. In addition, […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,11,88,3,133,121],"tags":[8106,231,8121,8701,8699,10,8056,8702,91,12,7,8734,232,4179,656,95,4,8700,6,8742,8739],"class_list":["post-11880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-lake","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-webtech","tag-9-december-2014","tag-agendas","tag-bills","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-joe-adgie","tag-lake","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-minutes","tag-ordinances","tag-paige-dukes","tag-real-estate","tag-regular-session","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt","tag-webtech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-35C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11880"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12268,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11880\/revisions\/12268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}