Plum officials have taken to YouTube in an effort to show residents their government’s discussions during the pandemic.
Council livestreamed its April 5 workshop session on its channel, Plum BoroTV.
There was one camera compared to several used at council voting sessions.
It had a fixed viewpoint with no zoom or other features. Staffers posted the video shortly after the live meeting ended.
It had 43 views within 48 hours.
Borough Manager Michael Thomas said streaming work sessions might become standard practice depending on council’s assessment of the broadcast.
“We wanted to see what the video feed looked like to the viewer and if it was of sufficient quality to continue to broadcast the work sessions in this format,” he said. “I don’t know how many viewers we had (that) night. We did not promote the fact that we were broadcasting on YouTube, because it was essentially a test for the borough.”
Council voting sessions have been shown on public access cable channels for years, but not the workshop sessions.
President Dave Odom sees workshop streaming as a way to reach more tech-savvy residents, as well as those who don’t wish to come to the borough building amid the pandemic.
“Having the ability to broadcast them on YouTube, and also the voting meetings on (Comcast) channel 19 and (Verizon Fios) channel 29, just gives the public the flexibility of how they want to participate in the meetings given the current restrictions that we have with covid,” Odom said.
“We’ve got a different demographic of individuals that are more savvy to social media and able to get their information using different types of online broadcasts. Opening up the work session and the voting meeting to that type of media platform gives us the ability to reach more residents that may feel comfortable participating in that manner.”
Council workshops are the first Monday, and voting sessions are the second Monday of the month.
More information is available at plumboro.com.
