Technological black-eye begs question who is in charge of the ongoing comedy of errors
By JOSH RESNEK
By our count, Monday night’s council Zoom meeting was the sixth council meeting cut short by ECTV’s unexplainable inability to conduct an off-campus Zoom city council meeting from beginning to end.
The technological requirements from the ECTV angle are like plugging in your computer and turning it on.
To be unable to perform a Zoom city council hearing is a bit like not knowing how to turn on your computer…or how to plug it in first.
Monday’s meeting ended with a succession of spurts and stops, finalized by the ECTV screen going dead at 8:40 p.m.
Once again, we heard no complaints. No questions. No efforts from anyone in a position of responsibility to correct whatever is wrong.
As usual, none of the councilors knew how foolish they appeared speaking as though anyone was listening but themselves as they continue the meeting.
Again, as long as they could hear themselves speaking, everything was fine with them.
No one from ECTV told them the meeting was stumbling and was not being broadcast.
Exactly why another council meeting was interrupted first, and then canceled long before its end, is a real question to be answered.
If this had happened once or twice, such disasters can be excused.
But this was disaster number six.
It was a bit like watching the Titanic go down a sixth time. City Council president Wayne Matewsky said he was disappointed the meeting went down the chute.
“I am going to get this straight this week,” said Matewsky, who has inherited the failing ECTV broadcasts from his predecessor, Rosa DiFlorio.
“I’m going to get it straightened out or something drastic is going to change,” he added.
A longtime city hall observer said he believed that the council meeting cancellations on ECTV were being caused not so much by technology but by human mischief.
“Council meetings and their public airing are being suppressed. The technology guy at city hall is being paid something like $100,000 a year and he can’t manage a Zoom council hearing…that doesn’t add up, does it?” the observer added.
“It is to those wishing to hide city business from the viewing public that we should be worried about. I’d say the ECTV and technology people are all swimming in the same tank,” added the source, who wished to remain unnamed.
Matewsky expressed irritation.
“Something isn’t right. I’ll get to the bottom of it. I’m not going to preside over another meeting that is canceled not even halfway through. The open meeting law and the people of this city deserve more respect,” he said.