Gainesville City Commission hears proposal to eliminate streaming and archived video of future advisory board meetings
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a Special Meeting today, the Gainesville City Commission heard a proposal that included eliminating public access to videos of advisory board meetings in the next fiscal year. The vote at the end of the meeting did not specifically address those cuts but directed staff to restore $475,000 in proposed cuts to grants for nonprofits that were presented later in the meeting; the proposals in the meeting also restored $115,000 for free bus passes for people over 65 and under 18 years of age.
As part of a presentation on the proposed Communications and Marketing Department budget, Communications Director Jennifer Smart proposed eliminating closed captions for advisory boards and other meetings, which would save $37,000 in FY24. Smart told the commission that because of ADA regulations, this would likely require the City to stop providing videos of those meetings to the public; only videos of City Commission and General Policy Committee meetings would be available to the public.
None of the commissioners had any questions or comments following the presentation.
In response to our request for clarification, Public Information Officer Rossana Passaniti said that if the $37,000 cut remains in the budget, “Advisory meetings would not be broadcast, recorded on video, nor streamed. Although we are still investigating all possibilities, our current understanding of ADA accessibility standards suggests we are expected to make reasonable accommodations to provide closed captioning for all meetings on video.”
Passaniti added, “To ensure government transparency, additional public access may include limited video recordings or audio recordings, as well as traditional meeting minutes in accordance with best practice.”
Removal of access to videos of the meetings would require members of the public and media to attend meetings in person to find out exactly what happened; although minutes are published for every meeting, they do not include many significant details and are often published weeks after the meeting.
City advisory boards and committees include:
- Audit Committee
- Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Board
- Board of Trustees of The Consolidated Police Officers and Firefighters Retirement Plan
- Citizens Advisory Committee for Community Development
- City Beautification Board
- City Plan Board
- Development Review Board
- Fire Safety Board of Adjustment
- Gainesville Art in Public Places Trust
- Gainesville Code Enforcement Special Magistrate
- Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area Advisory Board (GCRA)
- Gainesville Cultural Affairs Board
- Gainesville Housing Authority
- Gainesville Human Rights Board
- Joint Water and Climate Policy Board
- Nature Centers Commission
- Pension Review Committee
- Police Advisory Council
- Public Recreation and Parks Board
- Regional Transit System Advisory Board
- SHIP – Affordable Housing Advisory Committee
- Tree Advisory Board
- Tree Board of Appeals
- Utility Advisory Board
- Wild Spaces Public Places Citizen Oversight Committee
The proposed cuts could be restored in a future budget meeting.
How many communications staff members are there? If they cut back on all this, someone should be laid off. Smart and Passinini are useless.
Bad Move, Comrads. All meetings need to be in the Sunshine for everyone to keep an eye and ear on your upcoming troubles and challenges . Do not increase funding to your Crime Camp Compound. Lets ask JLAC what their thoughts are on you going into hiding. At lease a GRU Advisory Board , Hello. Or is that being dissolved?
Looks like someone has something they’re trying to hide.
Reminds of a recent presidential candidate.
Cutting communication with the citizenry and taxpayers for whom one governs is shortsighted. More communication by whatever means possible should be the overriding mission of those who are elected to serve or hired to manage the work.
As with most organizations, there is a hierarchy of management and supervision. Picture a tall triangle with the widest part for those who actually do the work at the base. This hierarchy can be flattened with minimal impact on the work performed as employees take responsibility with less supervision and more computerization and automation.
In addition, cutting services for the homeless is “mean” and will come back to haunt us all.
So basically, you want to block us from finding out what you’re doing w/ our tax 💸💸💸💸Clever & inhumane move!🤦♀️
Someone please find these idiots out in public and tell me if they are wearing a mask or not. I’m inclined to believe the commission meetings are nothing more than virtue signaling sessions. Surely, they are not dumb enough at this point to still be wearing these hideous rags and think they are accomplishing anything other than limited oxygen to their brains.
They need to stop mimicking commifornia, stop trying to hide from tax payers, and concentrate on roads and the other necessary city functions, and only necessary functions.
City commission meetings can be uploaded to a free video service like YouTube, which can auto-generate closed captions. This is just an attempt to hide what they are doing from voters.
All the city workers seem to be making above six figures for some unknown reason, so a better solution would be to eliminate one position from the Communications and Marketing Dept and triple the proposed savings.
They voted to keep giving $475k to special interest non-profits, probably run by friends or family members, but they need to hide meeting video in order to save $37k huh?
The State needs to remove these people from office ASAP.
I was thinking the same about the free video services out there. They probably only know how to use TikTok or troll people work good ideas that follow real science.
Where’s Saco? Has she hit her 20 hour a week limit or is she on another leave of absence?
Where’s the rest of them? It looks like they don’t even have quorum in this picture?
Would Zoom not be appropriate for these type of meetings? I know it’s probably a dumb question. Large companies use it. And conversations can all be recorded. Probably for a fee but maybe costing less than what they are paying now ? But I don’t know a whole lot about it. Maybe it’s not the right platform.