County should stay on Government Channel

For years, it’s been easy for customers of Cox and AT&T to pick up their remotes and flip over to the Fayetteville’s Government Channel to watch meetings of the Washington County Quorum Court and its committees.

The availability of such a service is a prime example of the kind of transparency that makes a stronger case that leaders are aware that government is for, by and of the people they represent.

Apparently, in 2019, those broadcasts may come to an end.

In last week’s budget debate among Washington County leaders, it trickled out that County Judge Joseph Wood had made the decision to end the county’s contract with the Fayetteville Government Channel, which broadcasts, records and archives videos from Quorum Court and committee meetings. The Government Channel is available to Cox and AT&T subscribers within Fayetteville and beyond into Washington County. People can also watch by live stream on their computer, although that can at times be a bit more of a hit-andmiss proposition.

According to the county judge, his plan is to drop the Government Channel service, which includes the city of Fayetteville sending a person to county meetings to do the technical work, and cut the annual budget for broadcasting meetings from $10,000 to $1,000. The city of Fayetteville operates the Government Channel.

Susan Norton, whose duties at Fayetteville include oversight of the channel, said the city is happy the county is going a different way, at least from a staffing perspective. The demand for video services within city government has grown so much it’s a challenge to staff the county meeting, too. There will be no shortage of work for that crew.

But will Wood’s decision to cut the budget and shift the method of letting the people watch their government in action mean reduced access for county residents interested in keeping their eyes on county business? Maybe.

Sidney Reynolds, the director of information technology for the county, contacted city of Fayetteville officials who operate the Government Channel on Nov. 2 to notify them of plans to end the longstanding broadcast arrangement.

“At this point we believe that we would be able to serve the needs of the interested parties to only stream and post the County meetings to the Washington County Website,” Reynolds wrote in his email to Norton.

It appears that means live-streaming on the county’s website.

If that remains the plan as the county makes the transition, it will mean a reduction in access. Getting to the Government Channel is as easy as pushing a button on a television remote, a skill most Americans have mastered. Getting to a livestream Internet broadcast is more challenging for those not familiar with the technical know-how.

I asked the county judge’s office for details on Friday, the day after news of this change came up in a Quorum Court meeting. Unfortunately, they couldn’t respond that day and promised to get back to me later.

Norton told me, though, that it doesn’t matter whether it’s the city’s technician or the county’s doing the work at the county courthouse. If the county’s IT department is operating the cameras and sound system, Norton said Fayetteville will still be more than willing to accept a broadcast feed so that the meetings can continue to be delivered live to all those customers of Cox and AT&T. Cost? No charge, she said.

“If they wanted to run it on the Government Channel, we’d be happy to do it,” Norton said. “The more programming, the better.”

If that’s the way the county judge works this out, that would be a win for everyone. Less money for the county, but maintaining the level of transparency and openness in government one hopes everyone wants.

Since the change has hardly been discussed in public, we’ll have to wait a little longer to see what Wood intends to do.