Why doesn't the City Council live stream its whole meeting and could that change?

But that’s not actually where the meeting ends. 

City Council members and city staffers continue to meet, sometimes for several hours in the council meeting room for what’s considered a “planning session” or a “study session.” At that time, they may receive reports from city departments, get updates on items they may vote on at later meetings or discuss other matters. Residents can also provide general comments about concerns or issues directly to council members after the video feed has ended. Currently, none of that is live broadcasted or video archived online for the public to watch, but members of the public can attend the meeting in-person and watch this whole portion.

The information that is live streamed and later video archived online consists of special business, consent agenda and new business. The city government’s spokesperson Cody Kennedy said that all formal items which would require a vote or council approval are made available to the public in video form, but informal items are left out of the broadcast.

He said the decision to leave out this part of the meeting in the city’s council broadcasts — which started in 2008 — isn’t meant to be untransparent or “malicious.” 

“It's not required because there's no votes and because there's no votes, it's not required to be part of that,” Kennedy said. “It's such a unique little thing that happens in our meeting.” 

However, that could change. 

FULL MEETING VIDEO OPTIONS

Conversations are still in their early phases, but there’s been some recent discussion about including the whole meeting in the live stream and/or the video archive. There have been some discussions about this in the background for awhile, Kennedy said, but it’s popped up again recently at the council’s annual retreat. What form that live stream or video archive would take, and if it would happen at all, are still up in the air. 

“They're entertaining kind of the idea of streaming that planning session portion of the meeting,” Kennedy said. 

That being said, at the most recent City Council meeting, Mayor John Bacon hinted at it briefly. Specifically, he mentioned that the conversation had come up during the council’s annual retreat, but wasn’t sure where other members stood on the issue. 

“My recollection is that you guys asked us to kind of look at it, put together a proposal, see if it was possible, so we can do that and bring something back to you,” city manager Michael Wilkes said during the May 3 council meeting.

Kennedy says the assessment is just getting underway with IT and communications staff exploring some options. Currently, the city’s video archive of council meetings posted after the live stream lets a viewer click on a specific agenda item. By clicking, the system navigates them directly to the appropriate time stamp to watch that discussion they’re interested in instead of having to manually fast forward through what can be an hours-long meeting. The desire, he said, is to see if that can continue to work for planning sessions or if other avenues are needed. Accessibility, like closed captioning, are also an element that needs to be assessed. 

“We're investigating every option that’s available,” Kennedy said. 

So far, ​​changes to how much of the meeting is publicly broadcast or video archived have not materialized. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Makenna Birmingham is a senior at Olathe East and a student in the Civic Leadership Academy. Her contributions to the Olathe Reporter are through a community partnership with student media within the Olathe and Spring Hill school districts that seeks to amplify student voices while also giving them access to learning opportunities beyond the classroom.