Cr James Blackwell lodged a question with notice to Council at the most recent Council meeting, asking what the costs for fitting out the Boorowa and Harden Council Chambers to allow for Ordinary Meetings to be held there and what would be required to fit out the locations.
Cr Blackwell lodged the notice by email on October 15 asking the two questions. Council recommended that Councillors vote to receive and note the response.
Council provided its response for Cr Blackwell and his fellow Councillors.
"Council chambers audio video upgrades to support Zoom style meetings at Harden and Boorowa," the response read.
"Requirements - the existing streaming serve, sound system and meeting equipment in both chambers is now no longer serviceable and requires complete replacement, to support meetings that have remote participants using 'Zoom or Teams'.
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"Both chambers projectors at Harden and Boorowa have failed and/or have reached their end of life and also require replacement."
According to the response from Council the only existing equipment that is reusable at each of the chambers are the desk microphones.
"So this is effectively a complete rebuild of the audio and video systems at each location," the response read.
"In addition to upgrading the existing equipment, the new systems need to be able to support remote meetings via 'Zoom or Teams' as done during COVID and is stull used in current meetings.
"This was never a design requirement for the original chambers installations."
Council said the current installs can't support Zoom or Teams use.
"To achieve this, requires additional video displays placed at strategic locations around the meeting rooms," Council said.
"In Young this now consists of two monitors to the rear of the chambers which allows all Councillors, Mayor and General Manager to see the remote participants and view their voting etc."
According to Council the placement of these additional monitors will be challenging.
"Given that the layout has Councillors around a square table design," the response read.
"This will require screens to be placed in at least two (both sides) or more locations to enable viewing by all Councillors.
"However, in Boorowa one wall is a glass doorway and is not suitable for TV mounting.
"It is going to be a difficult and a custom solution for each location."
The estimated supply of equipment for a mixer, amplifier, TV displays and mounting hardware, microphone equipment, hardware, communications/audio rack, projector and screen or LCD screen and mounting hardware as well as cabling, installion and labour was costed at $32,000 for each of the two locations.
The estimated cost for the streaming server for live streaming, controller console, network switching, seven wifi access point, USB power supplies for laptops, monitors and mounting hardware, cables and hardware at $7,000 for each site.
The total estimated cost per site is $39,000.
The recommendation to receive and note the report was moved by Cr Blackwell and Cr Foreman and was moved by Cr Blackwell, Cr Davis, Cr Dodd, Cr Douglas, Cr Flanery, Cr Gallo, Cr Ingram, Cr Langford and Cr Mackay.
Cr Stadtmiller had left the meeting at 6.17pm during the prior matter and returned only two minutes later, just after the report had been tabled, at 6.19pm.
