Danielle Pitman, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, OrilliaMatters.com

The length of time Ramara Township should keep video footage of council meetings is back under the magnifying glass.

With no standard set by the province, municipalities are left to establish their own framework for keeping footage. During this week’s committee of the whole meeting, Ramara politicians discussed amending a schedule of its record retention policy.

Based on directions from January, staff presented a report of best practices and a recommendation to extend video retention.

The following was recommended and discussed:

• That meeting minutes constitute the official record of council proceedings, and that electronic meeting recordings are retained for convenience and transparency purposes only.
• That open-session council meeting recordings be publicly available for the duration of the council term and retained for one additional year as unlisted content, after which they be deleted.
• That electronic meeting recordings be retained only on the township’s YouTube channel and not otherwise archived unless required for an active investigation, litigation, or access request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
• That the Clerk retain authority to remove or restrict access to recordings where required to address legal, privacy, security, or records-management concerns.
• Lastly, that live chat be disabled for Council meeting livestreams.

“When we’re doing the minutes, the official record, public comments are not included in the minutes and that’s part of the policy,” said Ramara Mayor Basil Clarke.

He made the clarification based on comments during the open forum. Residents worry that the meeting minutes do not include what is presented during open forum, even though it can be heard or viewed in the recorded footage.

“Under the Municipal Act, minutes are required to record, without note or comment, all resolutions — decisions about the proceedings of council — so that is very clearly legislated,” said Rebecca Zanussi, executive assistant to the CAO/strategic initiatives coordinator.

She clarified that the intent of the official record is not to be a verbatim transcript. Exact words are not included in the minutes because it is not related to the decision of council, she noted.

Thus, only the speaker and the topic are noted in the minutes.

Coun. Sherri Bell said she was speaking on behalf of her constituents who identified what they deemed a contradiction.

“If (the videos) are only for transparency and convenience, then they cannot be brought to an active investigation. So the two things don’t align,” she said.

Ryan Matson, the township’s director of corporate services/legal, explained why the language is intentional. He said the videos are “transitory” records, distinguished from the “official” records.

“The second piece of that, not being a contradiction, is just that if there is an investigation, litigation, and you were to dispose of those records, then you’d be potentially spoiling evidence,” he said.

“It was contradictory and people didn’t understand it … so that tells me the language is not good enough to help people understand,” rebutted Bell.

Zanussi clarified further, stating that “those two paragraphs are speaking to slightly different things.”

It identifies YouTube as the location where the video archive can be found. If needed for legal purposes, they can be retrieved and held longer than the policy dictates.

“Isn’t it enough to say that the minutes are the official record of the council? The rest of it is extraneous and confusing,” said Bell.

Due to the complexity of records management and importance of the distinction, Zanussi recommended not omitting any of the additional parts.

Bell also argued against allowing the clerk the authority to remove or restrict access to recordings.

“I’m 100 per cent sure that the public will not like that because it sounds like if you don’t like it, or whatever, there’s no rules there,” she said.

The authority is not granted to the clerk for arbitrary reasons, but as a safeguard, said Zanussi. The clerk is expected to address legal, privacy, security or records management concerns, she pointed out.

When Bell also expressed concern with removing the live chat, the mayor chimed in.

“We don’t have the staff to monitor (it),” he said, giving the example that if there were constant discussion from the audience in chambers during a meeting they would be asked to quiet down.

Coun. Dana Tuju cited researching what other Simcoe County municipalities have decided to do. She said about 90 per cent have opted to turn off comments from livestreams.

Coun. David Snutch moved the conversation to the length of time videos are retained. The recommendation is that the videos are available for the length of term and retained for an additional year after.

“I’m open to extend that,” he said.

Councillors Jennifer Fisher, Tuju and deputy mayor Keith Bell agreed that extending the length of retention is useful for council members to view the context of past decisions.

“My reasoning is not for the next council. If you want to run for council and you want to win a seat then you better get out and do your due diligence … I’m more concerned about the transparency aspect of it, so residents can understand what’s happening,” said Coun. Sherri Bell.

In the open forum, resident Agnes Voros suggested changing the location of where videos are stored.

“If you would like to save it longer, it’s not an expensive thing: $50 would go a long way on two terabytes,” she noted, suggesting using a hard drive to store videos.

Clarke had a different opinion on the matter.

For him there is no issue that council members are recorded. The matter is about when residents share their concerns, he explained.

“I’m a public official, it’s what I signed up for … I always get concerned in the case of a public meeting when (members of the) public are coming up to this microphone,” he said.

“I don’t know how they would feel knowing that we’re going to save those records forever, the videotape of them at maybe their worst moment, you know, up here, teary-eyed or crying or stuttering because they’re terrified, trying to express their concerns,” said Clarke.

He worries that if the policy is amended to hold video footage indefinitely there would need to be a sign stating so outside of chambers.

“And then watch how few people feel comfortable speaking at a public meeting when they know that,” he warned.

The topic will be revisited once more at the April 27 council meeting.

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