Editorial: For meeting videos, worry about good behavior, not bad publicity

About the same time Netflix began streaming content, it faced some competition from homegrown video productions: the often raucous Carpentersville village board meetings that were posted to YouTube.

It was an ugly time for Carpentersville. The mayor and trustees bickered, residents shouted down elected officials.

Videos went viral - and not just here.

All of this drama got in the way of running the village. It was reminiscent of the Council Wars in the city of Chicago - not a kind characterization for any suburban municipality.

With changes of the guard, the meetings have calmed down considerably over the past decade. But those old videos - shot and posted by a private citizen - still exist on YouTube as a reminder of how ugly things can get.

The village has had its own YouTube channel for the past six years. It became a way for people to watch a recording of a village board meeting from the comfort of the family room sofa. It's been a good way for people to keep tabs during a pandemic. But the village halted posting recordings last July.

While some board members are open to recording and posting the meetings again or providing a Zoom link, one trustee would rather not.

Trustee John O'Sullivan reminded the rest of the board that the videos of those so-labeled "most outrageous" board meetings are part of Carpentersville's permanent record.

"I don't want a repeat of that," O'Sullivan said. "This board has worked hard to get past those days."

"If I thought it was Grandma watching and she couldn't get here, that's one thing," he said. "But I don't think that's who is watching."

This is wrongheaded.

To O'Sullivan's point, the Open Meetings Act doesn't require the village to post video of meetings.

But to worry more about making a poor impression than providing greater transparency to your constituents is not the type of thinking we expect from village trustees.

Trustee Jim Malone had it right about suspending the posting of meetings: "It looks bad, and quite frankly, it looks like we're trying to hide something when we're not."

The simple answer is to comport oneself in a civil manner and keep meetings under control. It's incumbent upon elected officials to bring their business to the people, and this is one way to do so.

With the unblinking eye of a camera on them, most elected officials will behave properly. If they don't, they deserve the jeers they get.