The Tribune plans to do its level best to cover the action, but if you're interested in listening in on the Cody Council's meetings for yourself, you should check out their Web site, where you can find live and archived video feeds of meetings past and present.
Cody Mayor Nancy Tia Brown announced the new service at the council's March 2 meeting."From now on, those of you that want to watch the meetings online at any time can do that," explained Mayor Brown.
Point in case: I accessed her comments a few days later, at my computer that's some 25 miles away from Cody's City Hall.
The nifty video service -- which is also being used for Cody Planning and Zoning Board meetings -- is powered by a California company called Granicus. A particularly useful feature of the interface is that past council agendas are searchable, and the agenda items are hot-linked to their respective points in the on-demand video. So, if you're looking for information presented to the council about, say, the Yellowstone Regional Airport, you can just type a quick search, click on a result, and suddenly you're at the 5:09 mark at the March 2nd meeting, watching Airport Manager Bob Hooper's presentation about the airport's economic impact on the community.
As an added, unofficial bonus, the running video time allows you to track just how long each agenda item runs. (The opening moment of silence on March 2 ran about 15 seconds.)
The only downside to Granicus' slick video tool may be the price tag -- a recurring $618.80 monthly charge and a one-time $8,078.81 cost for the system's set-up, training, and software.
At last week's meeting, Mayor Brown made sure not to discriminate between constituents physically present and those virtually dropping in.
"That'll be a nice addition for folks who are not actually in attendance tonight," said Brown of the Granicus service. "But for those of you who are in attendance, we appreciate that, as always."
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