BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — We live in a time where cameras are everywhere, and it’s easier than ever to work, participate and observe remotely.
But Brown County is behind the curve when it comes to recording and publishing public meetings.
It’s commonplace in Northeast Wisconsin for groups to record and upload public meetings. Entities like the Green Bay Area Public School District school board, Winnebago County Board of Supervisors and both Appleton and Green Bay Common Councils all do it.
On Thursday evening, a Brown County Board of Supervisors committee continued its discussion of catching up to the digital age and doing the same.
“I think right now for us, for me at least, it’s a lot about education,” says Ross Toellner, a board member for District 24 in Brown County.
Toellner is leading the charge on the effort.
“We have 31 different departments at Brown County. I don’t think everybody in the county knows exactly what they all do. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to give everybody the opportunity to see [the meetings]… We talk a lot about accessibility. To be able to be accessible to everybody, we need to be able to have it so that anybody who can’t make it to a meeting can actually see it,” he says.
Toellner says it’s a process that’s been two years in the making, and it’s a lot more than simply recording and uploading.
“I wish that it could just be on YouTube. I really do. I think everybody kind of does. There are communities that are doing that, and no fault of their own, but we have our own specific set of rules that we are trying to go with ADA compliance and with the different types of compliances that are going out today. We’re trying to meet [those] with captioning, the ability to just be able to have it at the best of its ability for everybody,” he says.
Brown County plans to contract with Open Meetings, which will provide video captioning for compliance purposes and recorded meeting storage. After a recorded meeting test run later this month, the committee hopes to send the issue to the full board for approval.
“We understand that communities around Brown County are doing this, and we know that we need to hit the better standards than what we can,” Toellner adds.
If approved by the board, they hope to begin recording and uploading county meetings beginning in April.
Board members say it would cost the county $2,500 a year for the recording service. For this year, the money will come from the county’s contingency fund. Funding will be written into the budget for 2027 and 2028.
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