A Big Step Forward for Open and Accessible Government

Starting with our next City Council meeting on January 2, thanks to Ric Barrick and the Office of Communications at Cville City Hall, citizens will have dramatically improved access to the deliberations that shape our City's future. Come 2007, the City will be offering live, archived and streamed meetings over the City's Web site. Quoting from the press release that Ric issued today:

This new software solution creates an integrated public record of City Council agendas, minutes, and audio/video content, which are all searchable by keyword in one interface that is linked to the agenda of the meetings. City Council, Planning Commission and Board of Architectural Review (BAR) meetings will initially be featured followed by other meetings and important videos of resident interest at a later date. Users can search by keyword or “jump” to the moment when a specific item was discussed through a drop-down tool within hours of a meeting.

To access live or archived County Council meetings, visit www.charlottesville.org. New features like this often experience early bugs and glitches, so if you find any, please contact Ric at barrick@charlottesville.org and let him know.

Many thanks to Ric and his crew for seeing this idea through to fruition!