USTREAM not so welcome in Green Mountain Falls

A walkout in protest at the Green Mountain Falls Trustees most recent public meeting with the Mayor. Trustee Mac Petrone sat down with me to talk about why he led the charge out of it. It’s all about using USTREAM to broadcast these meetings. This is the fourth meeting being videoed. Petrone and others had enough of it.

I asked Petrone, “You don’t have any problem having your meeting televised?”

Petrone answered, “No but I do have a problem with advertising and editing. That’s a big problem for me. “

USTREAM is a service that uses advertising to generate revenue. You put up the video stream through a camera and it is broadcast on its service. USTREAM pops up advertising throughout the stream. You also have to pay to not see the advertising during the broadcast. Petrone told me, “More than anything else the commercials were a bone of contention. I don’t have a problem with someone filming or taping or showing the meeting. I do have a problem with anyone paying for it.”

Green Mountain Falls Mayor Lorrie Worthey told me, “During my campaign I ran on transparency in government, not business as usual and your voice matters.” She said that someone came to her and offered free of charge to use their personal camera to video meetings and send them on USTREAM This is a private citizen who is doing it. Mayor Worthey said because it’s a private citizen and not a city entity doing this, you can’t just order them to stop.

The Trustees will meet again in their regular meeting on the second Tuesday in October. They will talk about the USTREAM of meetings and see if there are any commercial free alternatives to it.