The City Council wants the East Providence Budget Commission to restore live streaming of its meetings and those of the School Committee.

The councilors voted unanimously Monday evening, Feb. 11, at a special meeting to push the budget board to approve an expense of $6,000 a year for the live streaming.  It was eliminated last fall when all department budgets were slashed 30 percent. 

“If people miss TV,” said City Councilor Thomas Rose Jr., “they miss the meetings. This is a need, not an option. We need this back.”

“It’s a fairly low cost for a much-needed service,” said City Manager Peter Graczykowski.

“I know it is a budget expense,” said Mayor James Briden, who called for the special meeting to deal with this issue. “But it makes us a better city.” 

City Council meetings can still be viewed on cable TV on the two days after the Tuesday meetings at noon and 9 pm. But those times are not convenient for many people in East Providence, he said.

City Clerk Kim Casci recommended that the councilors accept a bid from ClerkBase of Warwick, which already offers electronic dockets of meetings to East Providence. The meetings would be archieved as they stream, she said.

“It would be $6,000 a year after the first year cost of $7,000 to set up the service,” said Casci.

Three bids have been received for the service, she said: Vimeo, IQM2 and ClerkBase. 

The former would be very labor intensive by city workers and is actually not a live-stream option, Casci said. And there would not be a service contract.

IQM2 has worked previously with East Providence for streaming, agenda maker and minute tracker, she said in a memo to the Budget Commission. The streaming would cost around $3,600 a year. But the city would have to switch over to their agenda system at additional cost, and past experience with this vendor was less than satisfactory, she said.

ClerkBase offers a far superior product, Casci said, for a variety of reasons, including its direct link to the dockets, and time-stamps, which make it easier to view. There also is a support person assigned specifically to East Providence if problems arise.