North Aurora meetings may soon be on camera

North Aurora officials are interested in broadcasting village board and committee of the whole meetings.

But they want more information on whether they should use the services of the Southwest Fox Valley Cable Television Consortium to which it belongs, or do it themselves.

The village charges a 5 percent franchise fee on cable television providers, and provides 40 percent of that each year to the consortium for public access programming. The other consortium members are Waubonsee Community College, Yorkville, Plano and Sandwich. Yorkville, Plano and Sandwich broadcast their council meetings, which can be seen on their websites as well as Comcast Channel 10 and AT&T U-Verse Channel 99. The consortium also puts shows on YouTube.

The consortium staff could tape the meetings, according to village administrator Steve Bosco.

"This is just another avenue for people to keep in touch with the village board," Trustee Mark Carroll said.

Village President Dale Berman was the lone critic of the idea.

"They (viewers) are not going to get much out of our (board) meetings," he said, because trustees don't do a lot of "expounding" on why they are voting particular ways.

People can be better informed by reading the minutes and packets posted on the website, Berman said.

"We have pretty casual board meetings. ... We will get comments on 'So-and-so is chewing gum, and so-and-so is wearing an ugly sweater,' " Berman said.

Trustee Mark Gaffino said it would show "transparency" in how they govern.

"I think that would be a good show of faith in that direction," agreed Trustee Laura Curtis.

Trustees directed Bosco to investigate costs.