Now, read closely and take note of the sections in bold.
To televise or not to televise?Okay, the mayor and the Republicans cough up two
That is the question du jour facing the mayor and Republican Common Council members who are being scrutinized by Council Democrats and some residents for not making the issue a top priority.
Televising the monthly meetings on local cable television would offer residents who can't go to City Hall the option of watching from home. And although the mayor agrees, he said he is mainly hesitant to push the issue to the top of his agenda because of cost.
He estimates it would cost between $80,000 and $90,000 to equip two City Hall meeting rooms and the Board of Education meeting room, in addition to the Common Council chambers.
"It's a priority, but not a top priority at this time," Mayor Mark Boughton said Thursday.
1. Broadcasting meetings is not a high priority:
This simply is not the case. Many citizens (including Republicans) have long wanted Common Council meetings on Public Access. For the Mayor, the issue is a low-priority but for the citizens, it's one of the most talked about issues. Ask anyone on the street about whether or not meetings should be broadcasted and the answer will be yes. Most people simply do not have the time to attend a meeting as most adults arrive home after 6:30 while most meetings start around 7 or 7:30.
One only has to take a look at the Common Council minutes from the past and see that Boughton supporters such as Lynn Waller has spoken out on the need to broadcast meetings for some time. Waller even went as far as criticize the mayor on her show "In Our Opinion" when Boughton proposed the creation of a dog park, portions of which would be paid for by the taxpayers to a tune of aprox. 15,000.
It's interesting to note that since her rant on August 18th, Waller has not spoken about the broadcasting issue which causes one to think that she received "a call" and was told to tone it down. Regardless, her comment is on the record and I have countless amount of video backing up my claim (one word: tivo). Here's a videoclip I posted a while back that tells the story.
Republican Common Council President Joe Cavo is taking his marching orders from the mayor and had this to say.
"I don't mean anything bad by this, but it's not a hot issue," Cavo said. "I don't have people calling me asking for the meetings to be televised. People are more concerned about schools, roads, quality of life issues."Now Cavo is being dishonest as Waller and several other people have spoken out on this issue in the past. One would only need to go to Cavo's district and I'm sure that people would support the broadcasting of meetings. Also, at least one person has stated that they would volunteer their services to record the meetings so the issue of hiring a person part-time to record the meetings is not accurate (to put it nicely).
Cavo also is concerned about the cost. He said the city likely would have to hire at least a part-time employee to operate a camera at the various meetings.
"I'm doing some research on what it will all entail. There are so many questions that need to be answered before we make some decisions," he said.
Democratic minority leader Tom Saadi, however, fears the issue will never be on the Republican radar despite several Danbury residents who have spoken in favor of televising the meetings, including Lynn Waller, who hosts the Friday night show "In Our Opinion," and Christina Halfar, who has volunteered to record the meeting.
It's not like recording a meeting is like rocket science. Look at the meetings from Bethel on Channel 24. Someone puts a camera on a tripod, gets everyone in the picture and records. There is no zooming and no thrills as the sole purpose of the recording is to RECORD THE MEETING.
2. The costs:
Here's where the mayor and the Republicans, who have been in control of Danbury for too long, moved the goalposts in front of our eyes.
Boughton at first claims that the cost of hooking up City Hall and the Board of Education for broadcasting will costs aprox 60,000 dollars although he never explains where he got this figure from and as far as I can tell, this figure has not been verified by the News-Times. I would strongly encourage any reporter to request that the mayor explain where he got this figure from and/or ask him to provide name of the person who quoted him the ever-changing figure so his claims can be verified.
Now, in a stroke of Republican spin that would put a smile on Karl Rove's face, in Saturday's article, Boughton NOW claims that it will cost between 80-90 thousand dollars to broadcast meetings. Now, I'm warming up to Elizabeth Putnam's reporting and I definately think the News-Times is going in a better direction but this obvious flip-flop from the mayor should have sounded alarm bells.
Again, where did the mayor get this figure from and how did the costs suddenly increase by 30,000?
To get an idea on the TRUE costs of broadcasting, Putnam talked to Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi and he had this to say.
Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi has said that many commuters watch the meeting because they don't want to attend a two-hour meeting after a long day at work. Ridgefield uses equipment the school system no longer needed and pays about $1,000 a year for people to run several cameras.1,000 dollars per year plus the use of outdated cameras and Ridgefield is on the air YET Boughton and the Republicans are pulling figures from out of the sky. Hell, I'm sure the city could work out a deal with Comcast to use their cameras to record the meetings with no problem but Boughton and the Republicans don't want to look into this because they're stonewalling the public.
Here's a sample of the pro-broadcast comments to the News-Times article.
Let's see...Ridgefield TV $1000, Danbury $80,000 to $90,000...Could the discrepancy be so great because the Republicans don't want the public to see what they are doing?Simply put, Boughton and the Republicans don't want to broadcast the meetings because the less informed the public is, the better it is for them. There is no way that the costs of broadcasting these meetings will be in the range of 80,000 and since the meetings were broadcasted before, the place should still be wired up the video purposes. The city could work out a deal with Comcast and get a couple of camera as it's as easy as someone starting a public access show (that will allow you to have access to the cameras). Ivon from "At Work and Beyond" brought a Comcast camera to the September meeting and recorded everything with no problem (amaazing how fast that meeting went huh).
[...]
Danbury Republicans don't want to televise the meetings because they don't want anyone to see how bad and corrupt they are. After all, do they really want us to see how they gave a big developer the right to build 500 condos downtown TAX FREE FOR SEVEN YEARS? Of course not.
Bottom line is if they had nothing to hide they would televise the meetings.
[...]
they have a VOLUNTEER ready to run the camera, and I'm sure they could EASILY get kids from the h/s av or even Westconn to do an internship... what gives? they don't need to buy state of the art equipment..
" People are more concerned about schools, roads, quality of life issues."
BUT THEY WANT TO SEE WHY THOSE CONCERNS ARE NOT BEING ADDRESSED. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING???
[...]
"Get engaged, attend a meeting, it is called participating!" it's the 21st century. These meetings could be taped and shown on YouTube.
If the meetings and events were broadcasted, you would have able to witness such hits as:
• Hate-filled anti-immigrant rants of Common Council Majority Leader and Republican State Rep candidate (too funny) Pauline Basso,
• Mayor Boughton gives a SEVEN YEAR TAX ABATEMENT to BRT development while claiming that illegal immigrants are draining city services (without citing one service that has been effected by illegal immigrants).
• Watch as Mayor Boughton announces the formation of a group that will look into what positive and negative impact illegal immigrants have on the community (again, while stating that illegal immigrants are draining the services). I'm still waiting on that group to form (it's been over a year since he made that statement).
The lunacy goes on and on with the Republican-controlled majority and while it’s under the radar, it goes unnoticed until it's too late. In the end, we all lose.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
