Bethel installs audio recording equipment in council chambers

By Kristin Bednarski
Sun staff

Bethel Village Council members have a newly remodeled council chambers and updated technology that will allow them to record their monthly council meetings.

Travis Dotson, village administrator, said they decided to implement new software to increase government transparency in the village.

“We are still in the final implementation stages of that, but it will allow us to stream the audio of our meetings live over the internet,” Dotson said.

Dotson said meeting agendas, meeting minutes and audio will all connect together with time stamps so residents can easily follow the discussions from start to finish.

The agendas, minutes and audio will be available on the village website, www.bethel-oh.gov.

Dotson said the project involved construction work to wire council chambers, so they decided to use the opportunity to update the room.

“As we implemented the new software, we needed to install hardware to allow for the audio recording,” Dotson said. “So we took the opportunity to remodel the council chambers.”

Dotson said the previous layout was from another building and did not fit the room.

“We now have a professional layout that fits the layout of the room,” Dotson said.

Council members are still deciding whether they will have one or two meetings each month. They are currently meeting the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

The next village council meeting will be Feb. 14 at 6:30 p.m.

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