City Council Video is On Demand at www.LACity.org

Yesterday, the City's Information Technology Agency unveiled a new system for connecting the people of Los Angeles to their government. Now anyone in the world can logon to the City's website and view City Council proceedings On Demand. On Demand means that you don't have to watch a certain channel at a certain time or drive down to City Hall to watch a meeting. Now you can check up on your elected officials at your convenience.

The new video system takes the video feed from LA CityView Channel 35, converts it to a digital video format, and distributes it via streaming video. It also has handy features that let you jump directly to a particular agenda item, search the transcripts of a meeting to find keywords, and view official documents relating to each item. You can even search back through 12 months of archived City Council footage. For those of you on the go, take the City Council with you as an MP3 podcast. For more info about the system, click here.

As a former public affairs broadcaster, I believe that public access to information is crucial to sustaining a healthy democracy. This new On Demand system is a fantastic way for us to expand access to our city government, and I hope you will check it out.

To access this system, go to http://www.lacity.org/, and click "Council Meetings (Live & On-Demand)."
-Bill