Politics & Government

Council Reverses Support for Taped Meetings

Three council members voted against finding out how much it would cost to tape the council's meetings.

Those who want to watch Lake Forest City Council meetings from the comfort of their homes are still out of luck.

A proposal from Peter Herzog to find out the cost of taping the meetings for public viewing garned support from only one other council member Tuesday night, shelving the idea for the foreseeable future.

The three who voted against offered different reasons, with one saying the timing wasn't right and another objecting to spending any money.

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All five members initially seemed in favor of the concept when .

But Lake Forest's mayor, mayor pro tem and a longtime councilwoman switched gears Tuesday when they cast dissenting votes.

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Herzog proposed that meetings be recorded with a single video camera and then posted on the city's website.

"This is something that I've been pushing and trying to get," Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph said Tuesday. "Unfortunately, I think Mr. Herzog’s timing is way off."

Waiting until the city moves into its permanent home in the next few years——makes more sense, Rudolph said.

Although a longtime advocate of taping meetings, Rudolph said that she could not support Herzog's plan use a handheld video camera, calling it a "silly" proposal.

“I find it spurious that this is the cause célèbre when for 20 years it wasn’t,” she added.

Timing was an issue for Mayor Kathryn McCullough as well.

"This is late in the game," she said. “At this time I’m not interested in [the motion] coming back... Maybe next year, but this year I’m not.”

McCullough said she is willing to wait to make videotaping meetings a regular occurrence until Lake Forest gets a permanent City Hall, though she added that she might be willing to revisit the issue next year.

Rudolph echoed her concern about investing in video equipment only to pay for cutting-edge video technology at the city's permanent offices after its administrative functions relocate.

Equipment cost was the deciding factor for Mayor Pro Tem Scott Voigts, who said he agreed with the concept of taping meetings for public viewing but didn't want to spend the money for a video camera.

It's unlikely to cost more than $500, asserted Councilman Mark Tettemer, who voted in favor of gathering information about the cost of recording equipment.

"The recommendation here is for a single camera… I’m a little confused as to why this is cost-prohibitive," he said.

Tettemer also took issue with his colleagues who once were in favor of videotaping meetings, but are now unwilling to support Herzog's proposal.

“I just don’t understand the concern as to why this would not be well-received by those that are advocates,” he said.


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