The Athens City Council chambers could soon be the recipient of a makeover.
Suggestions to purchase new chairs, replace technology and rearrange the chambers were discussed at Monday night’s Athens City Council meeting.
“At this point, the chairs the audience members sit in when they attend meetings are 25 years old,” said Councilwoman Chris Knisely, D-at large. “A lot of them are broken, some of them are ripped (and) they’re not really comfortable.”
Though the chairs are what most attendees might see as the most comfortable fix, there is also behind-the-scenes technology that could use an update.
One of the suggestions from the council team is to replace the projector currently used for presentations with a large format smart TV.
“The image would be better and it would have independent access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and general web browsers,” Knisely said. “It would help us and other people who come to give presentations to Council.”
Scott Thompson, Director of The Government Channel, also wants to update the channel’s streaming capabilities.
Right now, there is a six to eight second delay from the time the modulated video signal leaves Athens, goes to Columbus, and comes back.
“Public Access – they’re doing it the way I wish I could,” Thompson said. “They’re sending a direct video signal to Columbus, then it’s coming back. We’re modulating our signal then sending it out.”
He added that when the City Council chambers were on Union Street about 15 years ago, raw video was transmitted instead and it had a better signal. Now, the signal is more susceptible to interference.
Thompson said he has been talking about rearranging the room for many years.
Because of the meeting room’s current configuration, three fourths of it is used to seat about 14 people. If the area were rotated to the back corner of the room, Thompson said, people walking in and out wouldn’t walk through proceedings to find their seats.
Having city officials sit in the row with Council members would also allow more space for audience seating.
“(It) can be distracting when people come in and out,” Thompson said. “I’ve never liked this setup from a production standpoint.”
Though many Council members expressed support for these ideas, Councilman Kent Butler, D-1st Ward, expressed fiscal concern for new seats and rearranging the room.
“I would be hesitant about replacing the chairs – my chair or the chairs in the audience,” he said.
However, Butler shared his support for new technology.
“I definitely see the benefit of moving forward with new technology,” he said. “I know that keeping up with the times is important for getting the message out. For me, it’s an easy sell with some of the computers because it is such an ever-changing, ever-moving forward technology.”
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