Residents can now keep up with the Raytown Board of Aldermen meetings and Raytown Planning and Zoning Commission meetings from the comfort of their homes via the Internet. The City has entered into an agreement with Swagit Productions, LLC to provide live streaming video of the meetings mentioned above. Thanks to the new technology, meetings are available live through any computer, tablet or smart phone.
Residents have consistently asked for more access to live meetings. We believe streaming will help us reach more residents, business owners and others interested in Raytown.
One reason we chose Swagit Productions is because they are the leading provider of hosted audio/video streaming services for many other cities and government agencies. Swagit’s Extensible Automated Streaming Engine (EASE) solution is designed to provide the City with a full service streaming media framework that reduces the need for extra staff.
Meetings will run live on the City’s website, www.raytown.mo.us as well as continue to run on the City’s Cable Access Channel 7 from Comcast. The June 2, 2015 Board meeting was filmed as a test run and can be currently viewed on the City’s website.
“The test run went well and the system appears to be working fine,” said Brenda Gustafson, Public Information Officer for the City. “The City has been looking for a solution to increasing public access to the live proceedings. This seems to be a good cost-effective solution.”
Board meeting videos will be archived on the City’s website, allowing residents to view previous meetings. We will consider adding other meetings and events in the future.
“And, the neat thing is that the videos are indexed,” Gustafson said. “People can look at the agendas, which are posted online and go to the specific agenda item they’re interested in on the video.”
Previously, the meetings were filmed separately from the live broadcast on Channel 7. The film disc then had to be converted by the Information Technology Department which took a couple of days and then uploaded on YouTube by the Public Affairs staff. The meetings were not available to everyone until several days after the meeting. With this service meetings are available live and then uploaded automatically onto our Website for immediate access.
The June 2nd meeting can be viewed HERE
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