Lincolnshire village meetings may go online

Charting relatively new ground in cyberspace, Lincolnshire officials may offer video recordings of village board meetings on the town's Web site.

If trustees approve the move next month, they'll be among the first in the area to put such videos online.

The leader of a Chicago-based government watchdog group celebrated the proposal Wednesday.

"I think it's fabulous," said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "It allows people who have got busy schedules, who may be working multiple jobs, to tune in at their convenience and follow the issues that concern them. And it allows the voters to hold elected officials accountable."

Lincolnshire already airs its Monday-night village meetings live on local cable television, and those sessions are rebroadcast later in the week. Audio and video recordings of meetings are available for purchase, too.

Adding the digital videos to the Web site, www.village. lincolnshire.il.us, would be another way for officials to communicate with the public, Deputy Village Manager Carol Marshall said.

"If this is approved, they can watch whatever meeting they want whenever they want to watch it," she said.

The village board meetings wouldn't be the only sessions available on the Web site, Marshall said. Meetings of the committee of the whole, park board, zoning board and architectural review board also would be downloadable, she said.

At a time when many area government agencies don't even videotape board meetings, let alone broadcast them, the move is further proof open government is important to Lincolnshire officials, Marshall said.

"It should be important to everybody," she said.

The municipal boards in Mundelein, Addison, Wood Dale, Naperville and Glenview are among the few government agencies in the area offering videos of meetings online. The Aurora-based Indian Prairie Unit School District 204 board puts video of its meetings on its Web site, too.

The Gurnee village board posts sound recordings of its meetings on the Web, but not video.

Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 officials are investigating Webcasting meetings and could discuss the issue next month.

Statewide, agencies that Webcast board meetings probably are rare, said Larry Frang, Assistant Director of the Illinois Municipal League. Most communities don't even have Web sites that are maintained full time, he said.

Lincolnshire officials are leaning toward creating an online archive of meeting videos rather than streaming them live on the Web, Marshall said. Live Web broadcasts are more expensive, according to village memos.

The board probably won't make the videos searchable by agenda item, as Glenview does, Marshall said, also because of the cost.

Archiving four months worth of meeting videos at a time on the Web site likely would cost between $200 and $250 a month, village officials said.

Canary called the service a good use of municipal resources.

"It goes back to Civics 101," she said. "Government belongs to the people."

The Lincolnshire village board could approve the proposal at its next meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 10 at village hall.