AUGUSTA — A committee recommends Augusta City Council Chambers, and its technological ability to broadcast meetings both on television and the Internet, be opened up to virtually all city boards and committees.

And two of the prime proponents of the move to allow groups such as the Board of Education and Planning Board to use council chambers for their meetings are two city councilors who were initially among the detractors of sharing the council meeting space.

Following a contentious hour of debate Tuesday, the city’s Cable TV and Telecommunications Committee unanimously recommended the school board, as well as the Planning Board, Board of Zoning Appeals and other city boards and committees, be allowed to use council chambers, where their meetings can more easily be broadcast.

The committee recommendation is likely to go to city councilors for discussion at their meeting Thursday.

The issue arose after Board of Education members asked to use the council chambers, in Augusta City Center, for at least some of their meetings.

The school board usually meets in either the Capital Area Technical Center cafeteria or the Cony High School auditorium.

Those spaces lack the high-tech video and audio television production system installed in council chambers about a year ago, thus the audio and video quality of broadcasts of board meetings has been poor, according to board members.

So they expressed a desire to have their meetings broadcast on television in better quality, by moving board meetings into council chambers.

Councilors last week asked the cable TV committee to look into the issue and make a recommendation. But not before some councilors, the previous week, had expressed reservations about allowing groups other than councilors to use the chambers. Among them were Councilors Patrick Paradis and Cecil Munson, who said council chambers had traditionally and historically been where councilors meet, and the school board could meet elsewhere.

Munson, a member of the cable TV committee, and Paradis both said Tuesday they’d heard from numerous constituents on the issue and are now both in favor of other groups using council chambers for their meetings.

“In our goal-setting sessions, we talked about giving greater access to the public,” Paradis said. “Once we open the council chambers to the school board, equal access ought to be given to other boards in the city. The council chambers is already ready to broadcast all the meetings.”

Paradis said he heard from numerous constituents Sunday, the day a Kennebec Journal article ran and quoted him as being opposed to sharing council chambers with the school board. He said when he talked to them they all reacted positively to the idea of opening up the chambers to other boards and committees, too.

Munson proposed the cable TV committee recommend councilors adopt an order specifying that school board meetings will be in council chambers and broadcast on television, and the Planning Board and other groups would be encouraged to use the chambers and be on television too, as long as time and resources allowed.

However he withdrew his proposed language following a terse exchange between himself and Councilor David Rollins over whether the language would state that school board meetings “will be” televised in council chambers, as Munson proposed, or school board meetings “may be” televised in council chambers, as Rollins proposed.

Instead, committee members unanimously approved a motion by Mary Mayo-Wescott, a former city councilor who also recently spoke against groups other than the council using council chambers, to recommend councilors allow other groups to use council chambers.

It remains to be seen where other groups who use council chambers for their meetings will sit.

Ward 1 Councilor Michael Byron, who did not attend Tuesday’s committee meeting, said previously he’d be open to considering allowing the school board to use council chambers, but only if board members did not sit in councilors’ seats behind the elevated platform from which they preside over meetings. He cited history and tradition as his reasons for not wanting school board members to sit in council chairs at the podium.

The committee was not asked to take a stand on that question.

Last year an approximately $100,000 project at City Center brought remote-controlled cameras, improved audio and video systems, a dedicated laptop, a document camera, flat-screen televisions for presentations and the ability to stream council meetings on the Internet.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

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