By Daily Press staff
Now you don’t even have to press “record” to watch government in action. The city of Santa Monica has launched an online archive of video broadcasts of City Council and Planning Commission meetings. The video in the web archive is the same as what Santa Monica cable subscribers watch on CityTV channel 16. The videos are available to any Internet-accessible computer.
The archives are available at smgov.net by clicking on “City Hall” and then clicking on “City Council,” and finally, “City Council netcast.” There will be links to live broadcast and the video archives. The online archives give users search access to the video vault. The system also allows users to jump directly to any item on the agenda, and City Council meetings may be viewed with closed captioning. Agenda items and closed captions are both in the search engine, meaning users can search for anything that was said during the meeting.
Santa Monica was the first city in the world to host interactive services to the public online, officials said. In 1989, City Hall offered information, electronic mail and electronic discussion forums. Today, the city Web site offers a broad range of electronic forms, databases, transactions, information and other e-government services for residents and business at http://smgov.net. ‘Bronzed beauties’ come to Santa Monica
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 11, 2005. Read the original PDF.