Mt. Lebanon's Public Information Office

I had a very interesting visit with Susan Morgans and staff today.  I was unaware of all the services that the Public Information Office provides.  Besides mtl Magazine, I asked lots of questions about the Municipal website.  Having two websites and a blog,  I was interested in the possibility of web streaming meetings instead of watching meetings on the Mt. Lebanon cable station, or relying on the podcasts on lebocitizens.com.  I know that the podcast section of my website attracts the most hits.  People want to know what is going on, but it has to fit their schedule, not the TV schedule.  I try to record all the meetings in Mt. Lebanon, but when there are meetings scheduled simultaneously,  or I can't get someone to cover for me (usually David Huston) when I have a conflict, it creates a problem.  The Municipality has been great about transparency, and today after talking to Susan Morgans,  I was thrilled to hear about a program that she has discovered.  The company that she has been talking with, is Granicus.  They would provide web streaming of all the meetings, with full access on the Municipal website.  Here is the cool part.  The agenda would be attached to the web streaming.  If you were interested in one particular part of the agenda, you would click on that and it would take you to that part of the meeting.  You wouldn't have to go through the whole meeting to find that one item on the agenda.  Also, there would be an interactive part, allowing residents to submit comments up to the meeting.  Elected officials could get citizen feedback minutes before a meeting.  So cool!!!
Transparency, citizen involvement on their own schedule, live indexing...now that's what I'm talkin' about!!  We need this!!