NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio – The city is upgrading its audio-visual system in City Council chambers so that residents will better see and hear livestreams of municipal meetings – and perhaps view past meetings online.
In September, council approved an agreement with Eko Solutions, a North Royalton audio-visual firm, to provide the upgrade for $18,391.
“This has been a long time coming and hopefully residents will enjoy it,” council President Paul Marnecheck said at the Sept. 17 council meeting.
Neighboring communities and school districts along Ohio 82 have also livestreamed and recorded city meetings to varying degrees over the years.
Livestreams increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, when councils and school boards started meeting virtually on electronic platforms like Zoom.
The cities of Strongsville and Brecksville, for example, livestream and record their council meetings for future viewing.
Broadview Heights doesn’t livestream but just started recording its council meetings and posting the videos on the city website.
Meanwhile, the Strongsville and Brecksville-Broadview Heights school districts livestream and record their board meetings. The North Royalton school district provides audio recordings of past board meetings.
At North Royalton City Hall, the city has been using a Zoom camera on a tripod to livestream council, Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals meetings. The livestreaming started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Zoom camera with its tiny microphone has been trying to pick up all the sounds in council chambers, and the sound is terrible,” said Councilman John Nickell, who with the city’s Information Technology Manager Brian Beals led the effort to improve the city’s audio-visual system.
“Residents watching the livestream can’t hear anything,” Nickell said. “The Zoom mic is so far away from the director’s dais (where department heads sit during council meetings).”
The new system will have two ceiling cameras, one pointed at council, the other showing the department heads. The new cameras will integrate with existing ceiling microphones, which are adequate.
Also, the new audio-visual system will have the ability to record council, planning commission and BZA meetings so that residents can watch them afterward on the city’s website. The existing system doesn’t have that capability.
However, it’s uncertain whether council will post recordings of past meetings online. Nickell said council has not yet made that decision.
Even if past meetings are available online, the city’s website can only support one recorded meeting each of council, the planning commission and the BZA. That means all meetings except for the latest ones would be deleted.
Nickell said council may discuss improving the city’s technology so that it can create an archive of previous meetings.
“Once we get the new system installed and make sure it sounds better, we can talk about extra costs and storage space for an archive of meetings,” Nickell said.
As of now, the city can email audio recordings of past meetings or provide the audio recordings on a USB stick, if residents request it.
