Update: The staff is in training and doing dry runs of the system now. Stay posted!

You will soon be able to watch regular commission meetings and discussion sessions whenever and wherever you want. Mt. Lebanon has contracted with Granicus, a San Francisco based company, to stream meetings at www.mtlebanon.org. Even better, meetings will be archived and you can watch them whenever you have time, on your home computer or on your mobile device.

Here’s where it gets even more convenient: meetings will be indexed and searchable to the agenda, so if you are particularly interested in only one part of the meeting while you’re watching an archive, you can click on the agenda item and it will skip to that portion. As meetings are archived, a search function will allow viewers to search for any agenda item on a desired topic and skip right to those proceedings.

What if you have input for a meeting but you’re sick, it’s too cold or you have other obligations happening at the same time? Additional technology will allow residents to be part of official proceedings even if they can’t make it to the meeting. Once the agenda has been published in advance of the meeting, residents may submit citizens’ comments that will go to commissioners so they will have the input before they make decisions.

As you can see, the goal is to involve more residents while keeping more people up to date on Mt. Lebanon government. Meetings will continue to air on Comcast and Verizon as they do now.

We are still finalizing the timetable for implementation but we are working to have it operational as soon as possible. We will send lots of notice, including Lebo ALERTS and newsflashes on the websites, when it is ready for viewing.

Want to see it in use? Allegheny County Council currently uses it. Here’s a glimpse: http://tiny.cc/k5z6rw.