A little camera in the courtroom of Medford’s Public Safety Building has opened council meetings to residents who don’t want to attend in person.
Now, nearly one month into live streaming council meetings, Medford is ready to expand the service.
Township manager Chris Schultz informed the public at last night’s council meeting live streaming would begin for planning and zoning board meetings. Streaming for the planning board will begin with the July 23 meeting, while zoning board streams will begin in August.
“We ran a test for the special planning board meeting on July 10,” Schultz said. “That went off with no issues.”
Live streaming of council meetings began one day after the township launched its new website on June 16. Since the launch, each of the three council meetings has been streamed without any issues.
“Everything is going well,” Schultz said. “You can watch the videos if you miss a meeting, you can select the part you want to watch.”
Each of the live streams is broken down similar to the meeting agenda. Viewers have the ability to skip ahead to individual sections such as the manager’s report, public discussion and voting on ordinances and resolutions. The stream also continues to run after executive session.
All meetings since June 17 are archived on the township website, www.medfordtownship.com, as well as the special planning board meeting from July 10. On demand streams are usually available the morning after the meeting.
Council also discussed a change to its meeting schedule in the fall. Schultz informed council there were conflicts with both November meetings. The Nov. 4 meeting falls on Election Day and the Nov. 18 meeting is during the League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City.
The November meetings will likely move to Nov. 11 and Nov. 25, pending final council approval.
