Tantalizing Scott Schwebke story in this morning's Standard-Examiner, on a topic which is near and dear to our Weber County Forum hearts. At last night's council work session, Boss Godfrey made an offer to share some time on the city-operated Godfrey Propaganda Channel (Comcast Cable Channel 17,) and to provide city council session video broadcasts to eager Ogden lumpencitizens, straight from the city council chambers. Mr. Schwebke's lead paragraphs provide the gist:
OGDEN -- Mayor Matthew Godfrey urged the city council during a Thursday night work session to allow its meetings to be broadcast on Ogden Channel 17.Read Mr. Schwebke's full story here:
Godfrey said the public has a right to watch gavel-to-gavel, unedited coverage of council meetings on the Comcast Cable channel to grasp how local government works.
"It's good for the general public to see," he said after the meeting. [Emphasis added].
The story goes on to recite some of the historical obstacles which have prevented such broadcasts in the past, and further sets forth the few relatively trivial remaining hurdles which need to be dealt with in order to make the video broadcasting of Ogden City council sessions a reality. Nevertheless, we're delighted to be able to say that we agree with Mayor Godfrey 100% on this (which is possibly a newsworthy story in and of itself,) and that we believe that implementation of this proposal would be a giant step forward in promoting transparency in Ogden City government.
Yes, we hope the council and administration will get this done. And we'll add that we believe that the more venues in which such broadcasts can be made available, the healthier it will be for the Emerald City body politic. The implementation of this proposal would most certainly be a boon to the many Ogden citizens who can't make it over to city city hall every time a hot button issue comes up on the council calendar, we believe.
Live streaming Channel 17 broadcasts? Taped delays? YouTube style videos available on demand from the Ogden City and/or Std-Ex websites? All of these are great ideas; and we'll add that we see no reason that any of these options should necessarily be regarded as mutually exclusive.
Yes, yes, yes. Lets put this project on the front burner, and make this most excellent proposal a reality before the end of the summer.
And what say our gentle readers about all this?
