eward County Commissioners’ meetings will be posted and accessible on YouTube within 24 hours of adjournment.
The commissioners voted unanimously for the posting of audio and video recordings at their April 14 meeting. The consensus was to place the videos on YouTube within that one-day turnaround time.
Seward County Clerk Brandy Johnson said on April 16 she is now working with the county’s technical contractor to prepare to post the audio and video of meetings in the next month.
She is working with the county attorney’s office to set up a YouTube account for the meetings.
The county recently upgraded the microphone system in its third-floor meeting room at the courthouse and the equipment can also record video. At this time, only one camera has been mounted in the meeting room but it is not yet activated for the recording.
The commissioners discussed mounting another camera behind the commissioners’ bench to allow people who come before them to be seen and heard.
Commissioner Raegan Hain, who has been posting audio meeting recordings at her own cost for more than a year, shared a list of meeting dates and the number of times they were opened for viewing, which ranged from 22 to more than 1,000 depending upon the week.
“As you can see, there are people who are wanting to check out that information,” Hain said.
She read a list of about a dozen counties that live stream their meetings and there are others that post recorded meetings.
Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said she did not oppose the audio-video posting, but she has never had a constituent request the recordings be posted.
She has had someone request the board meet after standard work hours instead of on Tuesday mornings. But she said she attends city council and other evening meetings that few if any members of the public attend unless there is a special issue on the agenda.
Commissioner Darrell Zabrocki said he had no problem with the idea of posting the meetings on YouTube but questioned whether the county is ready to do so.
“Are we satisfied that the new system is working adequately that we can commit to uploading?” he asked.
Hain said she would expect some technical challenges.
“You are going to have a time when things are not going to work,” she said.
Also at the April 14 meeting, the board reviewed but did not adopt any of three options for lessening the county’s risk of hail damage to vehicles.
The board had asked Seward County Building and Grounds Superintendent Eric Hofer to explore the cost of constructing a covered parking area at the county’s West Wing offices, near 14th Street and Highway 34, as a means to protect county vehicles from hail damage.
But a three-sided, 20-by-96-foot carport would cost nearly $47,000 to build and some commissioners questioned whether its appearance would fit in at that location. After discussion, they said it would not be cost effective.
The commissioners also discussed options for putting a similar shelter on other county-owned property, but questions around whether that would be allowed in possible flood plain areas, or how vehicles would have to be moved to a different parking lot were raised.
The availability of an early warning system that monitors hail was also discussed. That program, which is offered through the county’s insurance provider, Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association (NIRMA), would still require people to move vehicles to safer locations.
In other business, commissioners:
• Approved Hope Crisis Center’s request to have a lemonade stand on the courthouse lawn between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Thursday, April 30, in conjunction with Seward County Gives activities.
• Authorized Chair Misty Ahmic’s signing of a service agreement for Jackson’s Heavy Equipment Training, LLC, for which funding will be reimbursed by the Nebraska Department of Transportation.
• Authorized Ahmic to sign an environmental services agreement with Olsson, Inc., for the Nebraska Department of Transportation bridge project near Beaver Crossing.
• Took no action on an addendum to the public defender’s contract related to increasing allowable expenses on misdemeanor cases from $1,000 to $5,000, after Deputy County Attorney Barbara Armstead noted a difference between the original amendment and the current language, which means Ahmic will return the document to the Public Defender Policy Board for a second review before bringing it back to the commissioners.
