Westlake City Council meetings go high-tech

Is the daunting drive to Westlake City Hall hindering you from attending council meetings? Are you out of town and desperate to know if the latest hot topic was approved?

Not to worry, the Westlake Village City Council meetings will soon be a mouse click away.

In an effort to meet the goal of enhancing communication with Westlake residents, the city council unanimously approved a proposed agreement with Granicus Inc. to incorporate streaming video of council meetings onto the city's website at www.wlv.org.

San Francisco-based Granicus Inc. is the leading provider of web streaming and archiving services for local municipalities. The company serves more than 100 city governments, including Calabasas, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark.

The new partnership will allow residents to view live broadcasts of council meetings over the Internet, as well as search archived meetings by date and content. Internet viewers will be able see the meeting, agenda items and associated minutes in tandem.

Residents interested in researching a particular topic discussed at council meetings will be able to type in a keyword and be directed to the exact point in the meeting when the topic was referenced.

If individuals are interested in learning about water in Westlake, instead of viewing hours of tape, they can type "water" onto the website and be cued to the exact point in the meeting the issue was discussed.

The new web streaming service comes at a one-time installation cost of $19,418 and a monthly service charge to the city of $900.

It will take 60 days to install the equipment. The service should be operational by May, officials said.