Parkes Shire Council intends to audio record its meetings but not live-stream them to the public under a new Code of Meeting Practice currently on display.
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Under changes made to the Local Government Act councils have been told to make alterations to how they hold meetings with one of the requirements being the recording of meetings.
At its meeting last month councillors voted to put a new Code of Meeting practice on public exhibition until June 25 and if no submissions or comments are received on the new code it be adopted by Council on June 25 this year.
Under council's proposed code audio recordings of meetings will be made but meetings won't be live-streamed on video.
In a report to last month's meeting general manager Kent Boyd said "full costs of video broadcast and audio recording are yet to be fully scoped, it is believed that audio recording, the lesser of the two, would be in the vicinity of $30,000".
"Staff have discussed the permitted options for webcasting, including costs and ongoing operational expenses and data storage," he said.
"It is thought that the best option for cost effectiveness versus satisfying the intent of the regulation would consist of an audio recording of the meeting which is to be uploaded to Council's website as soon as practicable after the applicable meeting.
"Given the medium size of the council and therefore the limited resources to attend to full production of video live-streaming, that an audio recording be made and in accordance with the Code, up loaded to Council's web page as soon as practical after the Council or Committee meeting."
Mr Boyd said the webcasting clause in the new code also meant Council committee meetings needed to be recorded.
Mayor Ken Keith OAM, said he believed recording the meetings sufficiently catered to the needs of people who wanted to find out what happened at council.
Councils are required to webcast or provide audio recordings of their meetings from December 14 this year.
Under Parkes draft code recordings of each meeting of the council and committee of the councils will be retained on the council's website for three months.
Closed Council portions of the meetings do not have to be recorded.
An announcement will be made at each meeting that they are being recorded.
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