Allentown City Council Still Can't Afford Cameras!

(Except for the street cameras constantly watching us)

Allentown city council still won't offer videos of their meetings, but...

Lower Macungie Township does.
Lehigh County Commissioners do.
So does Northampton County's Council.


Last November 2013 city council unveiled it's $120,000 newly renovated chambers. One would think they would have appropriated about two or three hundred buck$ for a video camera to record meetings.

I find it reprehensible Allentown council's written minutes are always posted two to three months after the meetings. It can't be about the money it would cost. Nor can it be blamed on laziness or lack of expertise required to make videos. I consider this a deliberateness on council's part.

It can be for but only a few reasons:(1) Council is counting on only a handful of zealots who have the time or commitment to show up at city hall. Thus making their jobs easier to deal with. Doing videos online would expose them to at least 10x's as many people. I assume to them having less exposure means less grief to their way of thinking,

(2) Could it also be they want to know who the trouble makers are and where they live when citizens show up in person? This intimidates some people who fear there could be reprisals.

(3) Council's minutes in print form does not indicate the tenure nor body language expressed by council members as they speak to issues. Maybe they don't want future voters to form opinions or judge them on how well they carry out their performance while on council?Come on, this isn't the horse and buggy days. What city council budgets for someone to hand record the minutes. Who then has to put them into a computer archiving them to city servers cost no more then it would to video record directly to the server. It practically pays for itself!

So if cost isn't a factor. If it isn't technical expertise. Maybe somebody on council could explain exactly why they won't do this

Till otherwise I'll assume it's because of one or all three of the reasons I mentioned above.