GAWLER Council will now archive its online meetings for later viewing, in a move one elected member hopes will increase transparency.
Councillor Cody Davies successfully moved a motion at last week’s ordinary council meeting to retain the live broadcast of online meetings on the council’s YouTube profile after their completion.
Previously, the meetings had been deleted soon after their conclusion, despite the option to keep them up free of charge.
The majority of Gawler Council’s ordinary, special and committee meetings begin at 7pm on a weeknight and can run for as long as four hours.
Speaking during last week’s meeting, Cr Davies said the public having access to meeting recordings on-demand was “a valuable transparency tool”.
“I think this online infrastructure setup is an opportunity in some ways,” he said.
“This meeting, around 60 people have been consistently tuned in to this online. And we’re also getting around 10 people to sub-committee meetings which normally no one attends in person.
“Recording (of the meetings) is already happening, YouTube does it by default when you do a live recording, so we just need to keep it up there.
“I think it is a valuable transparency tool, making it so everyone can access our meetings.”
Council meetings have been held remotely since the end of March, after new State Government regulations allowed them to be broadcast online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gawler Mayor Karen Redman told The Bunyip a fortnight ago that the new regulations made no requirement for councils to save their online meetings, hence staff deleting them upon their completion.
During debate on Cr Davies motion, Councillor Nathan Shanks echoed his sentiments, saying it was an opportunity to “engage with our community”.
“It actually gives us another platform to engage with our community who may or may not be able to attend our meetings,” he said.
“There’s maybe a bit of interest we otherwise wouldn’t have if we weren’t on this digital platform.
“The silver lining is that the more viewers from our community the better and giving the option to view it at a later date only helps that mandate.”
Gawler Council’s recorded meetings can now be viewed at the Town of Gawler Youtube page.
