The Town of Canmore is a few steps closer to recording council meetings for public consumption.
Council passed a new procedural bylaw last Tuesday (Feb. 15) to allow for the official electronic recording of council meetings, reversing a previous ban on recordings.
Members of the media and the public, however, are still prohibited from recording council meetings unless unanimously approved by council.
Councillors debated whether or not to allow the media to record the meetings but ultimately decided against it.
Coun. Gordie Miskow was the only dissenting opinion on council, mentioning that it is a useful tool for journalists to be able to get the councillor’s quotes correct.
Coun. Jim Ridley was one of the councilors concerned about the possibility of public recordings being taken out of context.
“With these new tools and YouTube and all that, that would be my concern and interest; that things out of context are being portrayed as the total discussion and decision,” Ridley said.
The majority of councillors also preferred that the meeting be recorded in its entirety and posted on the town’s website.
“It made sense to have the whole transcript of what transpired to present to people,” Ridley said.
Council put $8,000 into this year’s budget to purchase recording equipment and hire a company to produce the podcasts and place them on the town’s website.
Sally Caudill, Communications and Environmental Care Coordinator for the Town of Canmore, said she’s currently researching companies that provide these recording services and will be asking them to submit bids in the near future.
There is no deadline to have council meetings recorded, according to Caudill, and it will happen when they have the equipment in place.