The gavel has come down on another year of meetings of the Ulster County Legislature. As we sit here making a DVD of the thirteen meetings (twelve monthly and one special meeting in October) we can’t help but reflect on some of the highlights of the year.
The Ulster County Legislature was busy. They passed a $334.5 million budget while voting on over 450 resolutions. They fine-tuned a dog tethering law and voted to suspend Common Core educational standards. They also listened to the year long public comments on the Railroad vs. Rail Trail debate. Minority Leader Kenneth J. Ronk Jr. even attended the November 18th meeting via Skype from a cruise ship in the Caribbean. We were there to witness all of it. You could have seen all the meetings too, but unlike us you never had to leave your home. We Livestreamed every one of them.
What is Livestream you ask? Livestream is a program that let’s us webcast the Legislative meetings in real time over the internet. To Livestream the meeting we set up two cameras in the Legislative chamber. One camera faces Chairman John R. Parete and the other one faces the legislators. Those cameras are connected to our Blackmagic switcher rack along with an audio feed of all the microphones in the room. A Mac laptop is used to control the switcher and a Livestream box is connected to the internet to webcast in HD quality video.
The Ulster County Legislature isn’t the only place we webcasted from this year. We webcasted from two of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world as well as the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A). We also webcasted a Hudson Valley American Cancer Society event as well as a kids TV show.
So as the ink dries on the DVD of another year’s worth of meetings we can’t help but look forward to seeing what 2015 will bring to the Ulster County legislature. By the way, if you want to watch the Livestream webcast of the Legislature meetings on your computer or smartphone go to ulstercountyny.gov/legislature and click on the Meeting Webcast page. If you actually want to see a meeting live come by and say hi. One of us will be behind a camera and the other will be in the back of the room behind the monitor in the Ellenbogen shirt wearing headphones.