Story expands access to council meetings
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — After running on a campaign of truth and transparency, LaFayette City Council Member for District D Charlene Story is ensuring citizens can see what decisions are being made in their city — through streaming and posting videos of the LaFayette City Council Meetings.
“When I was running for city council, I told myself streaming the meetings was something that I wanted to be able to provide to our citizens in the city of LaFayette,” she said. “Because a lot of people don’t come to city council meetings — either because they’re working, they may not have transportation or it may be a totally different reason why they do not come to the city council meetings. But it shouldn’t stop them from knowing what’s going on in the meeting, especially since [it] is part of the Open Meeting Act.”
With a desire to make LaFayette City Council Meetings more convenient and accessible, Story said locals will be able to watch the meetings from wherever, whenever — to stay updated on local events.
“I feel like when you livestream, it is transparent to the public — the public knows what’s going on, and it shows that we don’t have anything to hide when you livestream stuff,” she said. “For those who can’t come, they wouldn’t [think], ‘Well, was it [or was it not,] discussed at the city council meeting?’ With it being live-streamed, they can go back and [check]. Also, I feel like it will increase the engagement of our citizens because more people will start following city issues if they can watch the meetings from their home, work, in their car or wherever they may be.”
Story said she will have the livestream active so locals can watch the meeting as it occurs, and she will also have the videos remain on her feed afterwards, so if citizens are busy during the meeting time, they can watch it later. With her first video posted on Facebook on Dec. 8 and a plan to add YouTube for the next meeting, Story said the community is already happy with the new way to stay involved with local government.
“Monday was my first time livestreaming [the meeting], and as soon as the meeting was over — I would say, within an hour, my inbox was blowing up,” she said. “People were saying, ‘Thank you so much,’ ‘Oh my goodness, that was helpful information,’ ‘I appreciate you going live’ and ‘I appreciate you showing us what goes on in the city council meeting, everything was informative.’ I got so many praises from different people across the city. I don’t know which district they were in, but I just know a lot of people were like, ‘Thank you so much for doing this livestream,’ and they were so excited to see the city council meeting. And when I went back and looked at my engagement for that particular video, it got over 800 views.”
To watch live or archived city council meetings, follow Charlene Story, LaFayette City Council District D on Facebook or District D City of LaFayette AL on YouTube.
“I feel like it builds trust in our city council when we livestream, because when people see everything themselves, I feel like it’s going to increase their confidence in the people that they elected into office,” she said. “It also supports better communication within our city… I ran off full transparency, and I ran off [being] big on communication, so I want to be able to show them that I’m holding my end up of being elected for city council. I’m being transparent — I’m letting you know what’s going on in the city, whether you can come or cannot come.”
