For many years now, residents have voiced their frustration with the poor sound quality of meetings they’ve participated in remotely. Village officials have also complained, now that they’re allowed to participate in meetings remotely, that communication is often problematic.
Back in May of 2022 we wrote, “What message is the Cecola administration sending residents?,” in an effort to make residents aware of the communication frustrations people were experiencing. Since then, what few efforts staff at Village Hall have put forth to correct the problems have fallen short, and lately we’ve found the recordings of meetings we used to rely on for clarification fail to do so.
Case in point, when we questioned why perfectly sound concrete was being torn up at taxpayer’s expense at the fire station adjacent to Village Hall, we looked to the Village Administrator’s explanation in the October 23 recordings. What we heard was a sometimes barely audible but mostly unintelligible explanation.
The last time we can recall when a Village meeting was clearly documented was New Year’s Eve of 2018 when the Village Electoral Board convened. Even though recording equipment in the Board room was available, a much more dependable court reporter was engaged to document the hearing.
As it turned out, this was fortuitous since some alleged perjury took place at that meeting, and if legal action had been taken, the transcript would have been required by the court. Today we have nowhere near that recording quality to rely on, and with more Village officials participating with flawed remote technology, it will no doubt get exponentially worse.
Considering this, and the fact much of the equipment currently in use is beyond its’ intended shelf life, it’s time to purchase new equipment including visual communications hardware. If we have the money to unnecessarily replace perfectly good tile at Village Hall, then we surely have the money to bring our communications technology to levels addressing our current needs.
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