Board to consider pact to stream meetings on Web

The Oakland County Board of Commissioners is one step closer to live streaming on the Internet its full board and committee meetings now that the General Government Committee has recommended that the county board approve a one-year contract with SoundQue Multimedia.

The Trenton, Mich.-based company received the recommendation from an ad hoc committee studying the proposal, and the General Government Committee referred the matter to the full board, which is expected to send the proposal back down to the Finance Committee so more concrete cost figures can be hashed out, said Commissioner John Scott (R-Waterford, West Bloomfield), who sits on the General Government Committee.

“We need to know the actual dollars involved,” he said. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. What does it cost for the streaming and everything.”

He added that he’ll support the measure and that he, in the past, has brought forward resolutions calling for the online streaming of board and committee meetings.

Commissioner Gary McGillivray (D-Madison Heights), who served on the three-member ad hoc committee studying the issue, said that while the first Internet broadcast meeting is “still up in the air,” the board is shooting for April for that initial one to be streamed.

“I just think it’s an important issue that we need to tackle,” McGillivray said. “Fair and open government is absolutely essential. If you look at all the CVTs (cities, villages, and township), so many of them televise their City Council meetings but yet the county didn’t. We’ve got a wonderful website, and that certainly should be an avenue where residents of Oakland County could go and watch.”

The proposed one-year pact with SoundQue Multimedia to live stream the full board and committee meetings is pegged at about $48,000, McGillivray said.