03-13-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING February 27, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 of 22 minimum requirements. Summary versus almost transcript is, of course, up to the Council. But they are intended to be a summary-type document. Benson said everything you said makes sense. I'm not interested in creating a make-work program. As the person who did watch many, many hours of the videotape and check that against the written record in the minutes, this is why this has come before us a few times. In addition to the inaccuracies, I didn't feel that the flavor at times on the interactions during these meeting notes was being captured accurately in the minutes. The reason I'm bringing this up, again, is that it's fair to say that for other cities, perhaps a summative expression in the minutes is going to be sufficient. I would put forth that other cities perhaps are not struggling with some of the issues that this City is. This is why I'm interested in capturing an accurate reflection of not just the information, but also flavor of certain exchanges, especially as it relates to public hearing, public comment, or debate amongst Council in these meeting minutes. We do have video, but as Mr. Mayor just indicated, it is tedious to watch video, and I know because I've done it. We don't have closed captioning. And I know having talked to a number of people in the community, not everybody sits down and watches video. What is possible is for anybody to access minutes from the City of Orono, download those, do keyword searches and get information a lot more easily than they would through video capture. So the video is okay. However, it’s really not as useful as having accurate minutes. As it relates to the minutes that are before us today, I'm prepared to approve some of those but not all of them. So I also want to introduce the idea that with regard to the transcriptionist service that we are currently utilizing, without an accurate or almost verbatim capture, we are essentially requiring that a transcriptionist who may or may not know the issues of our City is tasked with the responsibility of summarizing information that maybe they're not even familiar with. What I'm really trying to work towards here is an agreement between us about how we feel about accurate capture, reflecting for our citizens and ease with which they can search through the minutes find the information they need. Also if they weren't at a meeting, or they weren't able to watch the video, they're able to understand the flavor of the interactions that are happening in these meetings. I do think that other cities do a great job of some of their meeting minutes. I think we've used this vendor for quite a few years. Perhaps there's room for finding a vendor that's either more cost effective if we have to pay for extra pages, or is going to have less errors because it is tedious. And I'm not looking for more to do any more than staff is with this, but I feel deeply committed to having accurate records for the benefit of the public. Seals asked what Benson means by flavor. Are you saying you want the emotion of the room? Benson said without verbatim you lose a lot. So for example, in the public comment in the February 13 meeting there was a citizen who gave quite a bit of public comment, but it was summarized in about four sentences. And given the length of that interaction, I didn't feel that the flavor of that interaction of those comments was accurately reflected in the minutes. Johnson said he was comfortable with the current arrangement. I think we should always be open if there's a more cost-effective way or a different vendor. I have no problems looking into different vendors. But we do have our meetings live, we do put a record of those videos. From a Council person's perspective trying to approve what another Council member’s interpretation of a meeting was, that doesn't seem like a very effective way to go. I think it's very important to have a third party do it because they're just recording the information; they are not putting a spin on it. So the first question is, as a Council, are