{"id":1845,"date":"2007-06-12T16:18:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T22:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/verbatim-minutes-of-meetings-is-only-the-first-step-toward-making-government-more-accessible\/"},"modified":"2007-06-12T16:18:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-12T22:18:00","slug":"verbatim-minutes-of-meetings-is-only-the-first-step-toward-making-government-more-accessible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/verbatim-minutes-of-meetings-is-only-the-first-step-toward-making-government-more-accessible\/","title":{"rendered":"Verbatim minutes of meetings is only the first step toward making government more accessible"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Do\u00f1a Ana County<\/a> Board of Commissioners was scheduled to vote today on whether to hire outside help to transcribe verbatim minutes of its meetings. Commissioners delayed the vote to give staff time to figure out how to pay for it, but four of five commissioners said they support the idea.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good plan that has history in county government, which I rehashed last week<\/a>, so I won\u2019t go into details again here.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Some comments from today\u2019s meeting made me decide to share a vision for how the county and other governments can increase accessibility and citizen participation in the information age.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The county currently records audio of meetings and keeps minutes that meet the literal requirements of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act<\/a> \u2013 they include the substance of proposals and records of how each commissioner voted. The minutes don\u2019t contain the substance of any discussion, and meetings often drag on for hours, making listening to recordings impractical.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In the past, I\u2019ve requested copies of recordings of meetings only to find some had vanished, erasing all record of the discussion behind important policy decisions.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The plan to pay a court reporter to transcribe meetings would cost $1,000 per meeting \u2013 about $24,000 to $35,000 per year, depending on how many meetings are held, county Attorney John Caldwell told the commission. He suggested that commissioners consider instead spending a little less than half that in one-time costs to purchase computer software that would place a marker at the start of each agenda item on audio recordings to make those easier to navigate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That, coupled with the summary minutes already being produced by the clerk\u2019s office, might be a cheaper alternative, Caldwell<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Commissioner Bill McCamley<\/a> went further, telling his peers that he believes the current system is \u201cfine.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see the need to spend money on this process,\u201d McCamley said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I do.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The current system is \u201cfine\u201d in that it meets the requirements of the law. It also provides a good enough record (except when audio recordings vanish) so that, should an investigation or legal dispute arise, lawyers and those they employ can spend hours and a lot of money transcribing recordings.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t help, in any way, people who want to be involved in their government but lead busy lives and can\u2019t attend meetings. Isn\u2019t making government more accessible a worthy use of taxpayer money?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Internet is the answer<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Used properly, the Internet allows for all sorts of possibilities for busy Americans to be involved in their government, and it doesn\u2019t cost much.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The ideal, in my view, would be for a local government like the county to broadcast its meetings on the Internet \u2013 video if possible, audio if not.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The government should archive those recordings so they can be accessed on the Internet at any time. In addition, the government should keep verbatim minutes. As Commission Chairwoman Karen Perez<\/a> pointed out at today\u2019s meeting, it takes a lot of time to listen to a recording of a meeting, but skimming through verbatim minutes is often a reasonable alternative.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Those minutes should be posted and archived on the government\u2019s Web site alongside notices of and agendas for upcoming and past meetings.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In addition, the site should include biographies of each elected policymaker and ways to contact them.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Many local governments have implemented some of these features. The City of Las Cruces<\/a> does all of these except make minutes of meetings easy to find on the Internet. Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> broadcasts audio of meetings live on the Internet, but does not archive those recordings on its Web site.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Imagine what doing all of that would mean. The professional who has to work during the meeting time, the mother who can\u2019t check in on the meeting until after she\u2019s put her 3-year-old to bed, the realtor who owns property in Do\u00f1a Ana County but lives in New York, and the Chaparral resident who\u2019s concerned about the proposed landfill in his backyard but can\u2019t make the drive to Las Cruces could all have immediate access to what\u2019s going on with the government, as long as they have access to the Internet.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth the small cost<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Unlike requesting copies of minutes or recordings from the clerk\u2019s office, accessing those records online would be free. It would also save the county time and resources needed to respond to records requests and make copies.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Say the high-end estimates are accurate, and it would cost $35,000 per year to keep verbatim minutes and $15,000 to buy the software.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

How much would it cost to put verbatim minutes and archives of audio recordings on the Web site? Not a lot. Once the minutes are produced, it\u2019s a simple copy-and-paste process to put them online. The county has its own programmers who could build a site that would automatically archive such files.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then such records could be accessed day or night online and, in addition, people could listen live to meetings from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the kind of access that truly helps people participate in their government.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The county just spent well over $100,000 on the spaceport tax election \u2013 one of countless important issues the commission will tackle this year. If the election was worth that much, aren\u2019t all the other issues worth a little investment \u2013 one that will truly help people squeeze government involvement into their busy lives?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Any decision the county makes on this issue should have that as the goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners was scheduled to vote today on whether to hire outside help to transcribe verbatim minutes of its meetings. Commissioners delayed the vote to give staff time to figure out how to pay for it, but four of five commissioners said they support the idea. It\u2019s a good plan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}