Transparency: July 2008 Archives

The MCA applauds Meredith for this great way to get the public involved and generate real ideas to help improve the community. How about it Moultonboro Selectmen?

‘Meredith Ideas’ session to be held on Tuesday evening

MEREDITH — Town Manager Carol Granfi eld will facilitate another “Meredith Ideas” session on Tuesday, July 15 at 7 p.m. at the Meredith Community Center. A session was held in 2004 which generated 36 ideas for consideration. This, second, brainstorming session with residents will enable summer residents to also attend and provide their input. Granfield said the session is not intended to be a program to voice complaints as there are other avenues to address those, but rather to solicit the public’s ideas and talents. The goal is to receive ideas from the public on programs, cost-saving methods to explore, and suggestions of what the public would like to see the town address, large or small.

BELMONT — Two members of the Board of Selectmen decided last night not to support a proposal from Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin to spend an extra $2,000 to implement a plan that would allow the town to begin recording from two camera angles the board’s bi-weekly selectmen’s meetings for showing on Lakes Region Public Access television. Instead, the project will proceed with just a single camera. At the board’s meeting in the Corner Meeting House, Chairman Ron Cormier suggested spending the money to make up for a gap between what the town currently has available for the project and what Beaudin said is needed for making a “quality” recording to show later on MetroCast Cablevision Channel 26. But board members Jon Pike and Reggie Caldwell refused to support the idea, noting that March Town Meeting voters approved only $5,000 for the recording equipment and they did not want to go beyond that figure. “That’s what we (town voters) appropriated because someone stood up (at the annual meeting) and said this is what it’s going to cost,” Pike said. “It’s typical Belmont — someone stands up in the back of the room and says they’ve already researched it, they know everything about it and this is what it’s going to cost. And they said it would cost $4,000. What would have happened if we hadn’t added the other thousand?” Beaudin said that at the board’s last meeting the members asked her to go back into the budget and find the extra $2,000 needed for the project. “That’s what I did,” she told them. “I changed my mind,” Pike responded. Chairman Cormier favors the idea of having the board’s meetings shown on cable television because voters decided to make Belmont an official ballot,  or SB-2, town next year. That means the traditional Town Meeting will be scraped in favor of a “Deliberative Session” — where warrant articles can be debated and altered — in February, and the final vote on the entire warrant takes place on election day in March. “I’m concerned about the issues and that nobody’s going to know what’s going on (on election day),” Cormier said. “I don’t know they will if we’re on television but at least they’ll be given the opportunity.” The chairman said that the fact that the voters had approved the $5,000 appropriation indicated that they want the meetings to be available on television. But the two other selectmen said that if that were true, the voters could add the extra $2,000 needed at the next Town Meeting in March 2009. Actually the town has about $9,000 to fund the recording project. MetroCast typically gives municipalities that are starting to record meetings for the cable television outlet a “character generator,” which allows the operator to superimpose the name and date of the meeting on the screen. The equipment, which costs about $4,000, is paid for from a fee local cable television subscribers pay to the company. But Belmont already owns a piece of equipment that serves a similar purpose so it’s eligible to receive the machine’s value in cash. In the spring, Beaudin said her research had led her to recommend that the town fathers approve a two-camera set-up: one camera would be aimed at the front of the room where the board members sit; the other would be aimed at the right side where people addressing the board sometimes speak and use materials to address their concerns. At the time, the administrator said the set-up would cost slightly more than the $9,000 that was available. She said she hoped the meetings would begin appearing on channel 26 some time early this month. After the board could not agree on the extra expenditure last night, Chairman Cormier directed Beaudin to move ahead and purchase one camera to record its meetings. She said the change — and the loss of a “switcher” to switch back and forth between two cameras’ images – meant the project could be brought in for a little less than the $9,000 available. Beaudin said she would make a call today to try to move the issue towards resolution.

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Public meetings and right to know have been in the news lately with the Belknap County Convention and the successful lawsuit brought to the NH Supreme Court by two Gilford Citizens. The New Hampshire Local Government Center has published a very concise article called "Meeting Minutes 101" intended as a guide for local government to properly capture public meeting minutes. Click on the link above for the full publication. Remember, you have a right to know!

MCA

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"It’s an attempt to be transparent and accessible to the

MEREDITH — As the Inter-Lakes School Board tries to decide if it should record its meetings for broadcast, it will not have to look far to fi nd an opinion on the matter. Bob Longabaugh, an Alton resident and former selectman, has been involved in recording meetings there for about a decade. He and other volunteers started with the Selectboard in October of 1999, then moved on to the school board, and most recently got the Joint Maintenance Agreement board, which governs the high school Alton shares with Barnstead, to agree to pay to record themselves. “It combines two hobbies: motion pictures and civic activism,” said Longabaugh. The elected offi cials were a little wary of the idea initially, but he said they soon began receiving more positive feedback than negative, and they now support the recordings.....

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"This is what it’s all about openness in government"

BY ADAM DRAPCHO               July 1st, 2008

THE LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — Some municipal boards have been doing it for decades, some are just beginning to get their hands dirty with it, and others are trying to decide if the time is right for them to start. But for any of the local municipalities who broadcast their meetings on Lakes Region Public Access (LRPA) television, all of them know Denise Beauchaine, executive director of LRPA. Local MetroCast cable customers know LRPA

as cable channels 24, 25 and 26. There are twelve communities affi liated with LRPA through Metro-Cast, including Laconia, Gilford, Gilmanton, Meredith, Tilton, Belmont and Alton. Some communities, such as Alton, broadcast many of their meetings, while others tape only one board. Meredith’s Selectboard and Laconia’s City Council are the only two boards that broadcast their meetings live.....

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