Tuesday, January 12, 2010

WCF Housekeeping Note: Ogden City Council Videos Now Available Through Two Sources

There will be no need for the citizens of Ogden City to ever again rely upon second-hand, hearsay Council reports (we hope)

Over the past several years Weber County Forum has extensively lobbied for the online publication of Ogden City Council session videos. For a random sampling of some of our earlier grousing, WCF readers can find our most recent rants on this subject here and here.

We expressed our delight back on August 6, when it appeared that the city-owned Channel 17 and the Standard-Examiner had begun begin broadcasting pre-recorded Ogden City Council sessions, starting that very day. Unfortunately, our celebration proved to be premature, inasmuch as the council video broadcast which we were raving about turned out to be a "one shot deal;" and subsequent regular broadcasts were never made available through either the Channel 17 or Std-Ex sites. "Technical problems"... we suppose.

For those who may have missed it however, Gentle Curmudgeon published an update on this subject in a lower comments section about a week ago; and we'll incorporate this comment here on the front page, just to get everyone up to speed on the current status of the long-sought city council video broadcasts:
The recent Ogden City Council meeting tape is up on line via Channel 17. Link here.
I couldn't find the link myself on the city site so I asked the Council's communications person, Ms. Heaton, and she located it for me. There are two council meeting tapes up at the site and it seems that's where future Council meeting tapes will be posted. I'm not sure if, or when, they'll be aired by Channel 17.
We've also been notified by former councilwoman Dorrene Jeske that the Ogden City website is now featuring council videos too:
Have you seen this? After many years of our grousing, it seems Ogden City now has council videos up on the city website:
Ogden City Website - Council Video
Thus, it would seem that the powers that be have finally responded to our laborsome petitions and have finally made provision for Emerald City Lumpencitizens to view full council sessions, from the comfort of their home-based Barcaloungers®. There will be no need (if all goes according to plan) for the citizens of Ogden City to ever again rely upon second-hand, hearsay reports of the antics of the Godfrey Administration (or the Council) in the future (we hope).

As an added bonus, we've checked the Channel 17 schedule; and it appears that recent council sessions will also be broadcast over Comcast Channel 17 at least once daily.

A Weber County Forum Tip O the Hat therefore goes out to Channel 17, and to the gnomes of the Ogden City Internet Technology Department.

And to our WCF readers we say this: A lot of folks have gone to a lot of trouble to make these important government transparency resources available to us. Let's not drop the ball on this. We hope that after all our grousing, our readers will make extensive use of these council videos.

For those readers who'd like to easily access these resources, btw, we've added the Ogden City website's "Council Video Page" to our right sidebar "Government Toolkit."

Who will be the first to comment on the apparent progress being made in the direction of Emerald City government transparency?

3 comments:

OgdenLover said...

Not to be too greedy, but as long as the cameras are there, broadcasting the Council Work Sessions would be really great. Maybe someday.

joe said...

Awesome!

Bob Becker said...

Mt. Ogden Golf Course topic pulled from tonight's Council Work Session:

Just received the email below from Ms. Heaton, the Council's communications person:

Please note the Ogden City Council will be having a work session this evening as scheduled, but this meeting will not include the planned discussion regarding the Mount Ogden Golf Course. This is because one of the presenters is unable to attend tonight’s meeting. This discussion will be rescheduled and our office will send out information as that occurs.

Post a Comment

© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved