The City of Waxahachie, Texas has partnered with Swagit Productions, LLC to stream their indexed public meetings, live and on demand, on their website portal that can be found at http://www.waxahachie.com/government/city_council/city_council_meeting_live_stream.php.
In 2018, the City began streaming City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission meetings to social media using an iPad and external microphone. Seeking a more turnkey and professional solution, the City turned to Swagit.
Now, Waxahachie’s City Council and P&Z meetings are broadcast hands-free, meaning the City does not need to allocate staff for meeting video production. With the help of Swagit’s Avior™ hands-free broadcast solution, a reliable high definition and dynamic viewing experience is available to over 10,000 resident households. The streaming video includes lower-third graphics, to help identify who is on camera and speaking; full-screen graphics of digital presentations will often have an inset “picture-in-picture” view of the speaker. Swagit’s hands-free EASE™ video indexing solution removes the burden of indexing from the City Secretary’s office who is responsible for keeping meeting records.
After a meeting concludes, its archived video becomes available for accessible on-demand viewing on the City’s website. For ease of access, viewing and sharing, Swagit’s advanced on-demand video indexing solution allows viewers to choose which meeting agenda items they wish to watch, and then jumps directly to that particular video segment.
As an additional convenience to residents, the City also posts all meeting agendas, agenda packets, and minutes on their live stream webpage, regardless of whether a meeting has been broadcast. Waxahachie does not currently use an agenda management solution for document storage, and opted to bundle this hosting into their service with Swagit.
“The City had a clear vision of how to improve their meeting transparency for their citizens,” said Natascha Ross, Swagit Account Manager. “They knew exactly what they wanted, found the solution they needed at Swagit, and embraced it.”