SCHENECTADY Council agrees to microphones After complaints about inaudible committee meeings, officials relent BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
A request by an elderly woman finally did what hundreds of other citizen complaints could not: the Schenectady City Council is going to make its committee meetings audible. Council members decided Monday that they will spend the winter testing out several types of microphones, and may even buy a camera to broadcast each meeting professionally. They preferred that expense over the other option: Moving to the council chambers, which is outfitted with microphones and cameras. The goal is to create a sound system that overcomes the low hum of the air conditioners in the City Hall board room, Room 110, as well as compensating for the tendency of some council members to mumble. The system could also be used by the other city agencies that hold meetings in Room 110, including the monthly planning and zoning boards. The council apparently did not realize the severity of the noise problem in Room 110 until Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Blanchard took a straw poll two weeks ago. “Can you really not hear us?” she asked the audience. “Raise your hand if you can hear us.” No hands went up — not even among the city department heads who attend each meeting to offer information and advice. Blanchard immediately declared that microphones are necessary. “In the 21st century, everyone should be able to hear our meetings,” she said after Monday’s decision. “We have to solve this problem. I’ve had it.” Reporters, who are seated closest to the council, regularly turn off the air conditioners so they can hear the proceedings clearly. Residents said they can usually follow most of the deliberations at that point, but still can’t hear certain council members. They cited Council President Mark Blanchfield and Councilman Frank Maurizio, who often begin their sentences loudly and trail off by the end of a speech. Council members have heard complaints about audibility for years, but what got their attention was a letter from resident Mary McClaine. McClaine, who attends nearly every meeting, wrote to say that she was recently outfitted with two hearing aids. She can now hear regular conversations, but she can’t follow the council during its committee meetings. “I made a formal request to my government to accommodate those who are physically challenged,” she said. “I sat there today and I couldn’t understand a word. To come down here and sit there and not hear what’s being said, it’s an exercise in futility.” She asked the council to install microphones or face a lawsuit on the grounds that it was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. The end result may be far more than she expected. Blanchard and Councilman Gary McCarthy want the council to approve a broadcasting package, which would include both microphones and a camera system to record each meeting for public access television. The voting sessions are already broadcast, but the council had balked at filming committee meetings. Now a majority of the council supports adding a professional camera system to the 2008 budget and installing it early next year, according to McCarthy. “If they’re going to do microphones, I think it’s going to lead to that,” he said. “I’m sure it will happen. The votes are there now.” McCarthy, Blanchard and Councilwoman Margaret King support broadcasting. Council President Mark Blanchfield has not taken a stance. Councilmen Joseph Allen and Frank Maurizio, as well as Councilwoman Denise Brucker, voted against the idea last April, but Brucker announced last week that she now supports broadcasting the meetings. Brucker, who is running for council in the November election, said at a debate that she’d changed her mind about broadcasting because the meetings did not become stilted or uninformative after a resident started taping the meetings. Resident Pat Zollinger began filming each meeting with her own camera when the council voted not to broadcast its meetings professionally. She sends the tapes to public access channel 16, which airs them regularly. Council members later acknowledged that her camera had no effect on the meetings. But the filming did emphasize the audibility problem. The sound quality was unintelligible at times, with council members often rendered inaudible the moment someone turned on the air conditioners. Zollinger has been frustrated with the sound as well. “This little camera has an excellent microphone. It will pick up anything I can hear,” she said of her $600 camera, which she bought solely for the broadcasting project. “The trouble is when they’re around the table, sometimes speakers speak softly because in their minds, they’re talking to each other. They’re forgetting it’s a public meeting and we’re straining to hear.” McCarthy, who first blamed the sound quality on Zollinger’s equipment, now agrees with her assessment. “We forget that there’s an audience there. You end up just talking to the person across the table,” he said. MEREDITH L. KAISER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Schenectady resident Pat Zollinger records a Schenectady City Council committee meeting Monday evening at Schenectady City Hall.
That is what you call action.....that choice will make Schenectady more progressive and 'stimulate' informed conversations not just the usual "I heard so and so, and they said this and blah blah blah."
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
This is in reference to the news Oct. 4 article about the city of Schenectady’s 2008 budget and code enforcement issues. Schenectady City Council President Mark Blanchfield stated in the article that building inspector Keith Lamp needs to get his “priorities straight.” This was because Mr. Lamp requires his code enforcement employees to cite property owners for even minor infractions, such as having the correct size for house numbers. It’s my opinion that Mr. Lamp has his priorities straight. An infraction is an infraction; it doesn’t matter how small. We have laws on the books to be followed not only by the citizens, but by the enforcers. We cannot just pick and choose what laws we’re going to enforce. Because it’s an infraction, it’s the duty of the code enforcement team to cite them. There is no issue of priority here; it’s an issue of “doing one’s job.” Just as we have laws directing drivers to wear their seatbelts, place their children in safety seats and not talk on our cellphones while driving, we have housing codes that must be followed if our city is ever to regain a higher regard for living and the law. I can imagine that Mr. Blanchfield doesn’t really understand the difference between setting priorities and managing a work force using a rule book. Mr. Lamp is responsible for ensuring that the public housing and building infrastructure is safe. He has a budget to work with, a rule book (known as our city codes), and employees to oversee. Mr. Blanchfi eld, on the other hand, is a part-time council member and an attorney, a profession rife with interpretation and subjectiveness, and subject to further interpretation by individual experiences. Mr. Blanchfield and Mr. Lamp work in vastly different fields and face vastly different problems on a daily basis. My feeling is that Mr. Blanchfi eld should stick to legislating our local laws, and if he finds any that he believes are not worthy of a citation, he should rewrite the local laws and ask that they be passed after a public hearing. That’s what Mr. Blanchfield’s job is — not to interpret what Mr. Lamp should or shouldn’t be doing and then saying it’s a matter of prioritizing. PAT ZOLLINGER
As everyone knows, and I understand that the Mayor's race is for Schenectady and not Rotterdam, there was a Debate held at Proctor's Theatre.
The showing by the public was sparse, about a hundred-fifty people. And to no one's surprise, many of them were Democrat Party faithfuls and Sharon Jordan handed out Stratton signs with little wooden handles at the door.
I knew that people just weren't going to get out there, in spite of some very good advertising by the Gazette. That's because it was held on a Wednesday evening, 7:30 to 9:00 pm.
But I went anyway with my great little camcorder and videotaped the entire debate. I apologize in advance for the shaky turning, but my tripod is old and not very good. SACCTV was kind enough to loan me a nice one, so the next video taping I do of the committees meetings should be much better.
I'm learning over time how to do things, first as I find out, then as I find a better way. I discovered that I do have a video converter that changes MPEG-2 to MP4. MP4 is a pretty good quality for webcasting. It reduced the part 1 video from 1.9 Gigabytes (broadcast quality) to 136 Megabytes with a 320 x 240 screen size.
I also have a Google video account where I uploaded these two videos of the Mayoral Candidate Debate. You-Tube has limits on the videos. 100 Megabytes and 10 minutes. Google allows larger videos and longer time. Actually I don't think Google restricts any of that.
So here are the videos. As I said, the more I do it, the better they come out. Better quality through experience.
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