E-Townhall Off to Rocky Start
Tuesday, October 15, 2013 @ 6:35 PM
Prince George, B.C. – An historic meeting for the City of Prince George this evening as it’s budget consultation went on to the “net” for the first time. And the information highway proved to have some potholes.
About 15 minutes into the e-townhall meeting, came texts from all over the city that there was no audio with the images being transmitted.
The public consultation session, required under the Community Charter had two options, to re-boot and as they say in show biz “take it from the top”, or to reschedule as there was no indication on when the problem would be corrected.
That meant presentations on past budgets, taxation allocations and the interim report on the most recent budget survey might have to be repeated.
The decision was to wait until 6:30 p.m. and if the issues weren’t corrected by then, well, call it a night, and reschedule.
With 2:00 minutes left on the clock, the problem was corrected.
The decision was to provide Financial Services Manager Chris Dalio’s presentation on line as it included “self-explanatory graphs”. And the interim budget survey results were repeated ( a further story to come)
With the evening back on track by 6:32, the e-townhall was online and moving forward.
Comments
i asked a number of questions never answered during the entire meeting and listened the whole thing.
Was there a helpful answer form the staff present at all? I don’t think so. they sounded like short pat responses that idd not illuminate the issues. Appeasement is what it felt like.
I’m surprised that they gave the e-mails any credit. That’s what they want isn’t it? No public dissention?
And concluded about 7:20 pm …. I missed all 50 minutes or so of it …..
2 hours set aside and 50 minutes used ….
I think this has happened before when the City has tried to stream meetings in the past. How hard can it be?
Considering how much $ and how often they upgrade the council chambers AV equipment, it should run smooth.
They have Council meeting streamed every couple of weeks. Technically, some are excellent, some are bad and several have gone off the air.
I do not know what the percentage of good quality should be, I do not know if they use internal forces or whether it is contracted out, but I would say that it should work in the 98-100 percentile on an annual basis and good quality so that everyone speaking can be hear in the mid 90 percentile range.
In actual fact, they are doing about as well as with the potholes.
“i asked a number of questions never answered during the entire meeting and listened the whole thing.”
And why would anyone be surprised at this? These are not town hall type meetings. This is a story telling or lecture session with comments taken down which may or may not be given serious consideration.
If something is self explanatory, that makes me suspicious right there. Nothing is ever self-explanatory to all people. Some things are self-explanatory to few people, and that is becoming truer by the year as administrative decision making and the input into that becomes more and more complex to those making the decisions let alone people who are not decision makers except for once every 3 or 4 years.
In today’s age of a spectrum of interactive communication media that is a travesty.
“These are not town hall type meetings.”
“About 15 minutes into the e-townhall meeting,…”
“The public consultation session…”
Confusion reigns supreme: It is a town hall meeting which is not a town hall meeting?
If it (whatever it is) is to consult with the public but no real public input is paid any real attention to as it is just a story telling/lecture session what is the purpose of it, except to conform to something in the Community Charter?
How did it conform to something or anything if it missed its purposes no matter what one calls them?
OMG!
Turns out (as per follow up here on 250) that all in all it did what it was supposed to do and deserves to be called a public input budget consultation session with the fancy name of e-townhall.
Hope they work on the technical glitches which seem to be the hair in the soup.
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