Council meetings soon online

Residents can now watch City Council meetings live from anywhere in the world.

Huntington Beach City Council meetings will soon be available live through the city’s website. This is the latest upgrade to the city’s viewing system. Last week, the city announced it would be archiving videos of old meetings on the Internet.

That’s good news for the dozens of lobbyists, developers and activists who do business in the city and want to keep tabs on local issues but can’t always attend the meetings in person. Before, only local residents with Time Warner Cable could watch broadcasts of the meetings.

The city clerk’s office has developed the system with the help of Granicus, a company that specializes in the live streaming of media content for local governments. The city clerk’s office funded this project from its budget.

Archives of the meetings will usually be available the next day. Shorter meetings may be available the morning after the meeting, while longer meetings may not be available until the afternoon or evening.

Granicus allows viewers of archived meetings to “jump to” a specific item of interest on the agenda. This feature allows viewers to choose the archived meeting they wish to view, choose the agenda item or section of the meeting that they wish to view from a dropdown menu that is below the screen, and then watch the meeting starting from that point.

Users will also be able to view the council agenda and, through a hyperlink, will be able to connect to the archived video at that point of the meeting.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first to be webcast, and the archived meetings, beginning Dec. 19, will also be available on the city’s website.