A new state statute has boldly gone where no state statute has gone, municipal public agencies are now required to post special meeting notices 24 hours before the meeting on the town website and to post minutes of every meeting within 7 days. Apparently the concept of process was somehow overlooked by those 2000 resident town legislators up in Hartford.

In cities, where boards and commissions meet every so often, the requirements make no sense. What the Freedom of Information Commission should have required is that municipal governments in Connecticut get an IT clue. Which would start with an mp3 recording of every meeting being posted to the municipal web sites at the end of every meeting. Then, the link to the mp3 which could be played or downloaded could also have a link to a service that would transcribe the mp3 into a verbatim transcript.

Currently what often happens, in the burgs of the land, is that the official meeting recorders take notes and tape the meetings and then transcribe by listening to those recordings and then getting the gist down. A process rooted in the antiquated court stenographer days, back when live recrodings was technologically unfeasible. Then the “prepared” meeting minutes are sent around to the members attending that meeting for review. Once approved, they then are released to the public. Having been in meetings, and then read the meeting minutes I’ve seen firsthand the discrepancies between what was said and what was said to be said. Verbatim’s eliminates that, but then the horrors of meandering statements are laid bare for all to see.

It’s cheap enough to record live audio, not that expensive to record live video, and surely if we are in the information age, then its time to stop trying to fix outdated ways of recording meetings, and embrace the web 2.0 way. Rip and burn baby.