By Ilsa Minor

iminor@dailypress.net

ESCANABA — Despite initial plans to record or livestream the meetings of Delta County’s smaller boards and commissions, the county board of commissioners voted unanimously to abandon the plan Tuesday.

Initially, the commissioners had proposed purchasing an “Owl” — a video conferencing camera and speaker device produced by Owl Labs — to live stream the meetings as they happened. However, after a review by the county’s IT committee, it was determined that the Owl could be better utilized as a recording device and that meetings could be uploaded after they occurred.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the board of commissioners, a plan to pay $2,900 purchase the Owl, a carrying case and a laptop for the device was presented, but commissioners expressed new doubts about the plan.

Both Commissioner Patrick Johnson and Commissioner Matt Jensen expressed concerns that recording the meetings and posting the recordings online would damage “candor” with staff who would be concerned about cyber bullying for sharing ideas.

“I believe we’d lose a sense of candor. In talking to a lot of our staff, they feel a little gun-shy over — if we’re brainstorming about an idea, you hate to brainstorm about an idea that’s not a great idea and then just be completely obliterated on Facebook,” said Johnson.

Commissioner Christine Williams, who sits on the county’s IT committee, reminded the commissioners that the meetings in question were open to the public.

“The public can be attending them and they could run with those same ideas and misconceptions or misrepresentations,” said Williams.

While not explicitly mentioned by the commissioners Tuesday, there is nothing preventing members of the public from recording meetings and posting them online themselves. The Michigan Open Meetings act allows public bodies to establish reasonable rules to prevent disruptions, but explicitly specifies “the right of a person to attend a meeting of a public body includes the right to tape-record, to videotape, to broadcast live on radio, and to telecast live on television the proceedings of a public body at a public meeting. The exercise of this right does not depend on the prior approval of the public body.”

Williams’ decision to vote against the plan was based on the cost of the proposal and the county’s continued negotiations to gain ownership of the room in the service center where commission meetings are held. Currently, the room is rented from a third party, but if the room comes under county control, more meetings can be held where live-streaming equipment already exists.

“I see it as a potential cost that we may not need in the future. I would revisit it if we don’t come through on this room or have this capability,” she said.

Commission Kelli van Ginhoven, who originally spearheaded the concept of a recording device for meetings said the idea was originally spurred by delays in getting the county’s agenda packets out to county residents. She said she was told by the county’s administration that smaller board’s minutes were one of the major delays preventing individuals seeing the packets and knowing what would be discussed at board of commissioners meetings.

“I was told that if people really wanted to be involved they could come to committee meetings because that’s where most of the information finding and the conversation takes place. That’s very hard for a lot of people to do because (the meetings are) in the middle of the day and they’re not able to make it,” she said.

Van Ginhoven also raised concerns about her own ability to learn what happened at meetings.

“More recently, I had also been told that I could not attending committee meetings that I was not a member of and — or I shouldn’t. Not that I couldn’t, but that I shouldn’t because it was a ‘bad look,'” said van Ginhoven, adding she had learned not all communication from one committee was being relayed to the next committee or full board.

The primary reason that board members would be discouraged from attending a committee they are not appointed to is that other board members are appointed to those committees. If the board member speaks or otherwise interacts with the committee and the other board members are present, it could create a quorum of the board and be a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

While it would not directly address the concerns about information not being passed on to other boards or about conflicts between residents and 9-to-5 working hours, Williams noted that the county is working on ways to get information out to residents in a more timely manner.

Specifically, the county is asking boards and those sending documents to the county — such as contractors submitting bids or proposals — to provide those documents in a way that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Currently, board packets are not produced in a way that is ADA complaint so they cannot be placed directly on the county’s website and must be emailed to a list of subscribers. If the documents are complaint, Williams said they could be posted as they are received, allowing residents and others to have access as soon as information becomes available.