WESTFIELD- The Municipal Light Board voted unanimously March 4 to have all future meetings video recorded and archived for public viewing.
The vote allows for the Board to record the full meeting on video and audio, with the exception of executive sessions. Each recording will be archived for six months and can be accessed by any member of the public. The Westfield City Council, Planning Board and School Committee meetings are archived the same way.
The meetings will not be streamed live or broadcast on television.
The debate on how to have the meetings more available to the public began last fall. The Light Board members chose to wait until after the election and January inauguration to vote on the matter.
Westfield Gas and Electric’s General Manager Tony Contrino said that the policy was drafted in order to match state law. He said that the recordings will be deleted once the six month period is over.
“As recommended within the guidelines, recorded meetings will be accessible for a period of six months, after which time the recordings will be deleted,” said Contrino, “Once the 6 month period has passed, approved and released meeting minutes can serve to address questions the public may have regarding previous meetings.”
During the months when the Board was deliberating this new policy, test recordings of meetings were conducted to test the logistics and equipment. Those recordings also served to supplement the recording of the written meeting minutes.
“Our recording efforts thus far helped support drafting the minutes and continued testing of the capabilities of the recording equipment in the conference room,” said Contrino, “Consistent with the State of Massachusetts’ Records Retention Schedule guidelines, the recordings have been held until the final minutes were approved and have subsequently been deleted.”
The April Board meeting is expected to be the first to be recorded.
