Comcast customers who watch City Council meetings on the cable television provider’s public access channel tuned in Tuesday and saw … nothing.
Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Arco said the city and the cable company were connected as always for council meetings, but the device that encodes the video signal before it’s sent to Comcast is apparently malfunctioning.
She said Comcast’s technical supervisor has been in contact with the city Information Technology Department and the hardware vendor daily since Tuesday and expects to soon have the system back online and council back on the air.
All meetings conducted in the council chamber in City Hall are live-streamed on the city’s website, coj.net, said council Director Cheryl Brown.
That includes the Finance; Land Use & Zoning; Recreation, Community Development; Public Health & Safety; and Rules standing committees, as well as the Planning Commission and Jacksonville Waterways Commission, she said. Budget hearings also were streamed.
For those who can’t watch a meeting live, there’s an audio and video archive in the council’s section of the city website.
Council recently acquired technology allowing webcasts that originate outside the chamber and even outside City Hall.
It was first used in the Lynwood Roberts Room and has hit the road for council members’ town hall meetings in their districts.
The next scheduled remote webcast is Nov. 5, when council member Danny Becton will host a community meeting to discuss possible traffic issues associated with the new IKEA store near St. Johns Town Center.
Anyone with access to a computer will be able to see and hear what transpires from any location, even on a smartphone.
“My vision is that wherever we are, we can stream,” said Brown. “Availability and accessibility equals transparency and that’s what we do at City Council.”
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