After this week’s Finance Control Board meeting at City Hall, I asked the audio and video technicians in the room how folks at home might be able to view the proceedings. There were three Comcast cameras mounted high on tripods on the far side of the room, as usual, and Monday’s meeting was apparently broadcast live on Springfield’s government access Channel 17. But when will it be broadcast again? I asked the technicians.
A Comcast employee in charge of creating the footage, holding the lone videotape of that day’s meeting, told me that he doesn’t know when these meetings get aired. "They’re not on a regular schedule," he said. "I just found out about today’s meeting last Thursday." Thursday? I wondered. He found out on Thanksgiving? I knew about this meeting a few weeks ago, personally, but that’s because I was watching for it. Comcast doesn’t keep an eye out for the schedule, helpfully posted on the control board’s Web site in at least a somewhat timely manner?
I suppose his point was that he makes sure to show up at the meetings and get the job done. "Is there a listing anywhere of the broadcast schedule for the channel?" I asked. He shook his head.
"You’d have to ask the mayor’s office to find out when they’ll be aired," he told me, and then added helpfully, "Tonight’s City Council meeting will be broadcast live."
I asked the mayoral aides about the broadcasts, asking simply—and of the room in general, for there were four people seated at four desks—"When will today’s control board meeting be aired again?"
Practically in chorus they replied that they didn’t know, and that I’d have to ask Comcast about that. I paused momentarily to consider this prospect. If I wasn’t mistaken, in effect, I had just asked Comcast, and I had been told to ask the mayor’s office.
"So you don’t know the schedule for when the meetings are aired?" I asked, for clarification, my brain trying to unscramble what surely was code for, "Yes, just give us a moment and we’ll pull that information for you." In response to my active listening technique, I was told that the mayor’s office has plenty of other matters to deal with, that "we have better things to do" than to be concerned with the schedule, and that "we don’t care" when the meetings are aired. The mayoral staff can make requests for what to air, but then they let go of the matter, if I understood correctly. (As I stated in response to this information, to make sure I got the message right.)
While one aide was informing me of this outlook, another was busy talking over him, asking for my name and phone number so he could follow up. "I’ll find out for you," he said, simply.
The mayoral staff has no control over when the meetings are broadcast—and, as I was told, they are not interested in keeping track, let alone in creating a means for the public to know about the schedule. Meanwhile, Comcast, for its part, appears to see its task as one of showing up to do the job, and getting these broadcasts aired. There is no particular public relationship, outreach or obligation, and no broadcast schedule available. My TiVo tells me that all the programming for Channel 17 is the same: "government access."
Huh. Some access.
The aide who offered help later phoned to say that Monday’s Finance Control Board meeting would be broadcast again on Tuesday, November 28, and today, November 30, at noon, 3:00 pm, 6:00 pm, and 9:00 pm both days. I was very grateful to have the information, as I had hoped to share it with the public. Beyond today, though, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps I should make a weekly call to the mayor’s office, so I can post the schedule here?
The technology exists to give residents better access to the documented Finance Control Board meetings. For example, streaming video on the city’s Web site could enable anyone from a computer to watch meetings going all the way back to the inception of the board. The technology also exists—and this seems more straightforward—to inform the public about the broadcast schedule for Channel 17.
If every single citizen who wanted to watch the control board meetings on Channel 17 had to call the mayor’s office just to get the broadcast schedule—that’s no kind of plan, is it? It is perhaps the staff’s good fortune that the public is as complacent as it is.
