Mesa TV has stopped livestreaming Montezuma County commission meetings because of low viewership.
“Nobody was watching our livestream on Mondays because they are at work,” said Mesa TV CEO Jedekiah Coy.
The local TV station will rebroadcast the meetings on channel 30.6 on Saturdays, at 9 a.m.
The Board of Montezuma County Commissioners meetings are livestreamed on the county website.
Mesa TV will continue to cover planning and zoning meetings, held the second Thursday of the month at 6 p.m.
In February, the station was granted a one-year, $9,600 contract to provide air time for county meetings. The station also posts You Tube videos of county meetings.
Coy said the meetings are rebroadcast in their entirety. Under its contract with the county, the station can edit the meetings for length and content “based on specifications of commissioners.”
The editing clause is intended to streamline the meetings, which can last up to five hours, Coy said. He said they have been running in their entirety because there haven’t been requests delete content.
Video recording lawUnder Colorado Open Meetings and Public Records laws, recordings of public meetings are open to public inspection.
The television contract accommodates that law, stating that “During and after the term of the contract, Mesa TV shall fully and immediately cooperate with Montezuma County in any requests under the Colorado Open Records Act or other legal disclosure requirements.”
However, the county’s contract raises a legal question regarding how the commission records its meetings.
Currently, the county clerk types meeting minutes and makes them available to the public. But under the Colorado Open Meeting statute (CRS 24-6-402), “If a state public body electronically recorded the minutes of its open meetings on or after August 8, 2001, the state public body shall continue to electronically record the minutes” from there on.
“It is our position that once they start, they cannot stop,” said Ashley Kissinger, a Denver media attorney with a firm representing Colorado newspapers. “The reason is that when the public sees the tapes and becomes more critical, (the government agency) cannot stop recording.”
The county disagrees.
Montezuma County attorney John Baxter contends that the county does not have to record meetings as long as it provides minutes.
