The newest members of the Brentwood Board of Aldermen, in , will have a distinction not shared by the more experienced board members: every one of the meetings they attend will be recorded and posted to YouTube.
The meeting Patrick Toohey, Cindy Manestar and Maureen Saunders were sworn in, April 16, was the first one uploaded to the video social-networking site.
Kevin McCarthy, who was once Brentwood’s director of communications, records each meeting with five video cameras: front (directed at the podium), rear (directed most of the time at the mayor, but can pan), two side cameras (directed at each side of the aldermen), and a camera just for documents, when they are used in a meeting.
McCarthy is a contract employee for the city. He was once Brentwood’s director of communications. He said he built the system with “spit, chewing gum and bailing wire."
He said to allow a few days after a meeting before it’s available on YouTube. It’s possible to subscribe to an email notification to know when a video is ready.
In this week’s meeting, Alderman Andy Leahy said an advantage is that now there won’t be an excuse for getting meeting minutes wrong, because they can be checked against the video recording.
To find the videos on YouTube, search for ‘Brentwood MO aldermen.’
Here are the links to the first two board of aldermen meetings on YouTube.
