Not enough choices for your home viewing pleasure? The City of Somerville may soon be expanding its coverage of all committee meetings through video or audio media.

By Jim Clark

Can’t get enough of the Board of Aldermen Finance Committee’s discussions about the Tree Preservation Ordinance with criteria for removal and notification to add safeguards for street reconstruction projects? How about the Land Use Committee’s views on an amendment to the Zoning Ordinance to create a new “CCD-55 Commercial” sub-district? Perhaps you are an involved parent wishing to keep up with the latest activities of the School Committee.

While some meetings have been accessible for review on video through the city’s website or on its cable channel, not all have been recorded and made available for public consumption.

A recent proposal put forward at last week’s regular meeting of the Board seeks to fill in the gaps by requiring the city to record all of its committee meetings by video or audio for the public record.

An order submitted by Ward 1 Alderman Matthew McLaughlin and supported by the entire Board would require such recording of all city committee meetings for public scrutiny.

“This came to mind when I was at a committee meeting the other day,” McLaughlin said. “There was a guy holding his phone to record the committee meeting. And I was amazed. Why aren’t we doing this? We have the microphones, we have the cameras. It doesn’t seem too difficult and I think for all of our own sake to have a public record, it would be great to have this.”

Alderman At-Large Dennis M. Sullivan voiced his support of the proposal saying, “I think it makes sense, now more than ever, whereas I won’t be around the Board much longer to view all this in living color. So it’s an issue that I’m interested in, and I know there’s a lot of issues out there from public transportation to public safety that I know some of us will want to watch. I think it makes sense. We can tune in on the website and watch it.”

Sullivan also joked that some of the aldermen will have to dress a little better at the committee meetings as the prospect of more public exposure becomes a reality.

Ward 6 Alderman Lance Davis expressed his support of the matter and reminded the Board that all of the Land Use Committee meetings from the past year have been recorded. He said that a number of people have told him that they have watched the videos. “It is, by my observation, a tool and a resource that the public values and is actually using,” Davis said.

Alderman At-Large Mary Jo Rossetti added herself among the other Board members expressing approval of the recommendation. She did, however, remind the members of the Board that there could be budgetary issues that would need to be addressed if more video coverage of meetings was to be provided.

“I would assume this would mean an increase in the budget for the Communication Department because now an employee would need to be on staff for every committee meeting we have,” said Rossetti.

Ward 3 Alderman Robert J. McWatters pointed out that City Clerk John Long had trained the various committee clerks to operate the video systems themselves. “At that time it was solely up to the chairman of each committee if they wanted to utilize that,” McWatters said.

The order was referred to the Rules Committee for further review and recommendations. No word yet on whether that meeting will be televised.