Fulshear City Council Meeting 11/17/2015, TURNING DOWN PUBLIC MEETINGS STREAMING

PUBLIC MEETINGS RECORDING TURNED DOWN, FULSHEAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING, NOVEMBER 17, 2015:

Council member Tajana Surlan Mesic and her elected friends killed an approval of the streaming of Fulshear public meeting

The City of Fulshear has budgeted about $48K for external media audio and video streaming services. The City employees have obtained and evaluated multiple bids for these services, it came down to two companies to compare apples to apples (HD streaming, agenda indexing, 2 cameras, remote operation) and with similar cost within the approved budgeted amount. One time equipment cost is about 38K and streaming service about 10K per year. Other bidders were significantly higher. Mayor stated if City is going to do it he is in favor of doing that right (HD etc) or do not try it at all.

Councilwoman Mesic stated she allegedly heard from about 5 constituents concerned about such a high cost.

City council did not approve the investment, the motion died for lack of second. Councilwoman Mesic asked for more bids to see if there are less expensive bids.
5/2017 UPDATE: The streaming of public meetings never made it back on the agenda as long as of May 2017, when Tajana Surnal Mesic term was over.

However, just few weeks later on 12/1/2015 Councilwoman Mesic proposed that taxpayers should pay for meeting teleconferencing when she cannot be there, mayor stated constituents expect her to be there and serve the citizens who elected her. Contrary to the live streaming meeting broadcasting for the public, this time the cost did not appear to be her concern