Quinte West City Council carried a motion to have the recorded livestreams of its council meetings stay online for three years from the date of the livestream.
The motion was carried at a council meeting on Wednesday.
Under the previous by-law, the recorded livestreams would be online for one year from the date of the livestream.
As an example, the City of Quinte West’s council meeting on January 24, 2024 would stay online until January 24, 2027 under the new by-law. The motion was brought forward by Councillor Shelley Stedall.
“Even right now, we can’t see anything that actually has happened with the previous council,” Stedall said to council. “So in moving forward, I don’t know if three years is long enough, but I would at least hope that we could have that.”
Stedall says the minutes that are written for a council meeting are not as detailed and don’t include the back-and-forth discussions from councillors.
“This discussion I’m having right now will not get recorded in the minutes,” Stedall said.
“If somebody does watch the video, then they can actually see what people are talking about and some of our votes if they’re not recorded. If they’re not recorded votes, then it’s just all in favour and you can’t tell if there are people that are voting against it. So with the video you can get a little bit more.”
Councillor Don Kuntze expressed his support for the motion.
“I also, myself personally, wanted to go back and check out some of the minutes and if I didn’t quite comprehend what my recollections of the meetings were from the minutes then it would have been really handy to go to a video to view it,” Kuntze told council.
“So other than that, then I have to either go to some of the counsellors that were at the meeting and/or staff members to verify what I thought was happening or didn’t think what was happening. So I think this is a good idea.”
Council voted in favour of the motion.
