Bristol Tennessee City Council to go live soon

BRISTOL, Tenn. – The city will soon offer live broadcasts of City Council meetings, bringing the decision-making process into homes via two cable companies and the Internet.

Now, citizens don’t have to be at the meetings to watch and listen in real-time as council members and attendees debate the issues.

"Anybody in Bristol can put on a pair of slippers, sit down and watch the proceedings," Bristol Tennessee Mayor David Shumaker said. "They can see how we sometimes disagree and argue on passionately for our positions. But in the end, we take a vote and move on to other business."

Beginning Jan. 8, City Council meetings normally held on the first Tuesday of each month will be taped and placed on the city’s Web site, http://www.bristoltn.org.

Visitors to the site can download the meeting in its entirety. From that point forward, all meetings will be accessible online for review.

In about two months, both Bristol Tennessee Essential Services and Charter Cable will broadcast the meetings live on a government channel. The meetings will be rebroadcast, but those times and dates have not been established.

Once the live television broadcasts begin, the meetings will also be available online.

"We started doing test runs in September," said Terrie Smith-Talbert, the city’s public venue director. "City employees filmed two meetings. We looked at those and have been adjusting the lighting and audio. We did a final test run at the December meeting."

Features on the Web allow citizens to stop, pause, rewind or fast-forward parts of the meeting. In addition, agenda items can be accessed just below the footage.

"In the long term, we’re hoping to add other city meetings to the broadcasts," she said.

City employees will tape the meetings and encode them onto the Web site, and the total, initial investment for the city is about $10,000, said Jeff Broughton, city manager.

"We won’t be changing anything [with editing]," he said. "The citizens will see and hear exactly what transpires. We [the city] chatted about this and council felt it would help give citizens a better opportunity to observe their elected officials at work."

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