Beginning with the February 13 Township Council meeting, a new recording setup was installed in Town Hall, designed to improve livestreaming capabilities. There are now fixed cameras mounted throughout the room, and improved microphones are expected to arrive for installation in the coming weeks. An employee, situated in the back of the room, operates the cameras. The employee essentially serves as the “director” for the video that is streamed to the public and available to view on the Livingston Township, NJ, Facebook page.One meeting in, and the difference from what that livestream used to be, compared to its quality now, is night and day. With changing cameras and closeups on speakers (as opposed to static shots of the room), viewers can get a real sense of what is happening during the meeting. And, even as we wait for new microphones to arrive, the audio is finally clear enough to hear everyone speak, which has been a frustrating challenge over the past year since the return to in-person meetings.We are thrilled that this improves the quality of meetings for those who are unable to attend in person, or prefer to watch from home. Upgrading the livestream was necessary, and the new setup addresses the major concerns from previous meetings. Now, we just need to make sure every governing body in town takes advantage of it.The Board of Education has had a similar competent setup for its meetings for over a year. The Zoning Board is still meeting over Zoom. Both sets of meetings are easily accessible to the public via livestream on Facebook.That just leaves the Planning Board, which meets in the same Town Hall chambers as the Council, and has the same access to its technology. Yet, as of the start of 2023, the Board no longer livestreams its meetings, as it had been for the past several years. Planning Board meetings, like all township meetings, were held over Zoom from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly three years ago through the end of 2022.Since March of 2020, the public had been able to view all four sets of meetings from the comfort of their homes, providing equitable access to all who wished to watch them. If someone was ill or otherwise unable to attend a meeting in person, they did not have to miss anything from these meetings that directly shape the makeup of the town. When the ...
