It was interesting to see a recent City Council meeting include a 20-minute discussion over the contents of past meeting minutes.

To make a long story short, three sets of minutes were before the council for approval, and council member Wendy McCain took issue with all three while John Wortman raised two. The majority of the changes were minor in nature but McCain asked to correct a statement attributed to her that she viewed as incorrect as well as to have her opposition to a loan for the parking garage included through a statement read on her behalf at the meeting in question.

At the end of the discussion, absolutely nothing happened. Both requests were tabled.

We can understand why McCain wants the minutes to be changed. And, we understand better than most the difficulty in transcribing everything that happens at a meeting into meeting minutes. It’s a thankless, time-consuming job that is also vitally important to make sure meetings can be reconstructed in the days, months and years that follow.

Video can’t replace meeting minutes, but it can be a helpful tool. Viewing the council’s meetings via Zoom comes with sound quality that makes following the meetings incredibly difficult, and the Zoom meetings aren’t available to the public after the fact.

Warren should take a hint from other cities that stream the meetings live on Facebook and then archive those videos on their website.

In situations like McCain’s, both the reading of her comments in the first meeting and her issues with the meeting minutes are captured for the public while the debate over their inclusion in the official minutes is held.

It’s the best of both worlds, and best of all, it increases transparency for the public.