Sherburne County board meetings won’t be video-recorded anytime soon.
Last week, the commissioners were not in agreement about spending almost $100,000 on a system that would videotape board meetings and make them available to the public.
Two weeks earlier at a county board workshop, Information Technology (IT) Director Brian Kamman gave an overview of the proposed system and how it would work. At that time he said the cost would be between $100,000 and $125,000 to purchase and install the equipment.
Last week, he said he looked at two different designs to install video cameras in the boardroom and get video service back to a system that would digitally record the board meetings.
“The lowest proposal was $97,000 to install the equipment,” he said. “We would provide an individual out of IT that would come during the board meetings and take the board recordings.”
“Once the digital recording is made, we would provide it to all citizens on our website. We could also provide it to cable companies newspapers or other agencies that would be looking at a video source.”
Commissioner Felix Schmiesing said he was in favor of moving ahead.
“I would like to see us approve this today,” he said.
Commissioner John Riebel felt there were still questions about the future expansion of the Government Center to consider.
“We don’t know when we’re going to have our new building up and going, or if we’re going to have a new building up and going. Then we go in and remodel the new building to put this system in, change it or whatever,” he said. “We don’t know how that’s going to work yet. Why are we in such a hurry? I agree with it, it’s a good thing, but now we’re going to have to chop into the new building and figure out how to get this stuff in there. I think we have to plan ahead for this instead of sticking it in now.”
Commissioner Ewald Petersen wasn’t in favor of moving ahead.
“I think that this is a total waste of $97,000,” he said. “A total waste.”
Commissioner Bruce Anderson said he was also concerned about future construction and sharing the video system with other groups who might want to record their meetings.
“I understand there’s a need for this, but I think we just need to know a little bit more where we’re going with this building project, who the players are going to be and where this boardroom is going to be located in this construction process,” he said. “I’m all in favor of this, but I just don’t want to see $98,000 tossed out the door if we put this boardroom somewhere else.”
Commissioner Rachel Leonard told Kamman he did a good job doing research on the system, even if the board wasn’t ready to move forward yet.
“We sound like we’re attacking you,” she said. “But we just asked you to look into it and I appreciate what you did.”
Schmiesing said he was disappointed and felt Kamman explained at the workshop that re-locating the system after new construction would cost about $12,000 to wire-in new electric and communication cables.
“Were talking about wasting $98,000. I think that in the workshop he clearly demonstrated that we would re-use a lot of this equipment,” he said. “I think the decision this board is making is that we really don’t want to have our meetings recorded. We don’t want to be, I think, as transparent as possible. I think that’s a big miss for the citizens to be able to watch their elected officials and how we handle ourselves in this boardroom. I’m very disappointed that we arent going to do it. I think the public expects it.”
Anderson said he wanted to be sure the board had all the information before they decided to spend money.
“I don’t look at it that way. It’s about taxpayers’ money,” he said. “I’m in full support if it’s done, but I think we need to sit back and make sure that we’re spending it wisely.”
There was no vote to move forward with installing the system.
