County Board Videos

[UPDATE: May meeting videos have been posted over the past few days on the County Clerk's YouTube Channel, including the May Committee of the Whole and regular County Board meetings here.]


Typically if you want to see what happens at one of the County government meetings, there are a few options: attend in person, watch live on-line streaming during the meeting (when available), or catch the recorded meeting on YouTube a few days later on the Champaign County Clerk's YouTube Channel. Folks attempting to use the third option have noticed some hiccups this year. Long delays, technical issues with the videos, and then the videos stopped completely in March. The latest meeting covered is the March 12th Committee of the Whole that was uploaded over two weeks later.

The reasons given for this situation are staffing. For those following County politics, you may remember that the County Clerk's office changing hands involved a bit of a staff exodus, including the information technology specialist. From the News-Gazette back in February:

Tom Kacich | For new Champaign County clerk, 'it's been a learning curve'
...
Soon after he took over Dec. 1, the county clerk's office was down six employees. Ammons said it was a foregone conclusion that his Republican opponent, Matt Grandone, would leave the office, as would former clerk Gordy Hulten and Hulten's Chief Deputy Jeremy Cirks.

But he said he was unprepared for the loss of three other employees almost immediately, plus a fourth who left within a couple of months. He said it was "disheartening" that two of the former employees gave two days' notice and another gave no notice at all.

"If they thought they were hurting me, I think they missed the fact that they were hurting the taxpayers and maybe some of their teammates who have had to pick up the slack," he said. "We want to stay focused and positive, but I think it's important the taxpayers know this from a professional standpoint."

The employees who remained, Ammons said, have been "absolutely amazing. Their expertise and commitment has been unquestionable."

Slowly, he said, he's filling positions. He's hired an information technology specialist, expects to have a deputy county clerk within a week and is close to hiring a chief of staff. By May he thinks all the positions in the office will be filled.

That full article available here. Unfortunately the IT specialist mentioned in this February story didn't work out. A new IT specialist started last week, but is still getting up to speed on everything. There seems to be some hope of videos becoming available again soon, but I wasn't given a time frame on when that can be expected.

For the time being, the options to catch County Board meetings are to catch them live or you might be waiting a while. Meetings from March and before are still up and available on YouTube here.

Update: The County Clerk added this additional information via twitter today:

We are working with County IT department to make the videos available. We are still determining if that will be on the County website or through YouTube. We anticipate having the videos available very soon and appreciate everyone’s patience.

[Updated: originally posted on 5/13/2019 at 3:54pm.]