7 posts tagged with "Local Government"

County and municipal PEG access channels sit at the center of public meeting video in Colorado. You simulcast council and board sessions to cable, your website, and YouTube. Cities and school districts ask your station for guidance on accessible broadcasts. And when budget season arrives, directors need a defensible story for how live captioning, archived captions, and audio descriptions get funded.

This guide is written for Colorado PEG and access channel directors, franchise administrators, and AV staff evaluating captioning vendors. It covers the legal landscape, how PEG funding may apply, and a practical procurement workflow that starts with measuring your gap before you commit.

Public meeting video is only half the record. Residents also need the agenda they read before the meeting, the board packet with staff reports, and the official minutes that follow. Until now, those documents usually lived on a separate page on your website while the recording sat in Granicus, YouTube, or a Recap embed. Residents bounced between tabs. Clerks re-uploaded the same PDFs in multiple places.

Recap Innovations now supports meeting documents and draft minutes directly on each meeting recording. Attach an agenda, packet, published minutes, or highlights document, or generate a structured draft minutes document from the transcript. Everything appears alongside the searchable transcript and captions in your Recap embed and showcase collections.

California Senate Bill 707 is the most significant update to the state's open meeting law in decades. Signed by Governor Newsom on October 3, 2025, SB 707 amends the Ralph M. Brown Act to require public agencies across California to offer hybrid meetings with two-way remote participation, activate real-time captioning on video platforms, translate meeting agendas into languages spoken by significant portions of the local population, and take concrete steps to encourage participation from underrepresented communities. The law took effect on January 1, 2026, with enhanced requirements for larger agencies kicking in on July 1, 2026.

Every summer, cities across the country host parades, fireworks shows, festivals, and outdoor ceremonies. A grandstand announcer calls out each float, marching band, and community group as they pass. But that speaker system only carries 2 to 3 blocks. Anyone watching from further down the route, sitting in a lawn chair around the corner, or standing across a noisy intersection hears nothing.

For attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, the announcer was never accessible in the first place. Recap changes that for both groups: live captions and text-to-speech voiceover turn any outdoor event into one that every attendee can follow, from anywhere, on their own phone.

City clerks are responsible for the official record of public meetings, but producing detailed minutes is one of the most time-consuming parts of the job. AI-powered transcription can automate the bulk of this work while simultaneously making meetings accessible and searchable for residents.

This guide covers what city clerks need to know about adopting automated meeting transcription: how it works, what accuracy to expect, how it fits into existing workflows, and how to procure it.

A growing number of cities and towns are investing in searchable meeting transcripts as a way to increase civic engagement, reduce staff workload, and meet ADA Title II accessibility requirements. The trend is accelerating in 2026 as residents demand easier access to local government proceedings.

When public meetings are recorded and posted online, cities check the transparency box. But transparency is not the same as accessibility. A 4-hour video recording that no one watches is technically public but practically invisible. Searchable meeting transcripts change the equation entirely.