At Hanover Township Council's meeting on Nov. 20, Chairman Frank Dreisbach proposed aquiring a system of cameras and software that would permit council meetings to be streamed over the Internet to interested residents and registered guests.

According to Dreisbach, the cost of the technology is reasonable and it is something residents asked for. He presented an estimate of less than $1,500 for the equipment and setup expense and an ongoing monthly fee of $49 for the system.

Councilman Bruce Paulus said he opposed the measure when it was first discussed last month and had not changed his position.

What has changed since the initial discussion on the issue is the November election.

"Bruce Paulus, Curtis Wegfahrt, Joe Heimbecker and Mike Woolley oppose streaming and will not continue it in January," Paulus said. "You are wasting the taxpayer's money on something that will not be used."

Dreisbach responded that the township has wasted far larger sums on changes to the municipal building.

"We have the ability to tape meetings that we paid for and never use. We have a projector with screens that we paid for and never use," he said. "You can do whatever you want in January, but we should have the capability for streaming the meetings."

Council approved the measure by a vote of 3 to 2, with Councilman Randall Atkinson, William Kovacs and Dreisbach voting in favor of the motion.

The Whitehall Township commissioners recently had a disagreement over the videotaping of commissioner meetings, but the videotaping continues there.

There is no requirement from the state to audiotape or visually record meetings.

The official record of a meeting is the written minutes that are designed to report the action of elected officials, but are not word-for-word transcriptions of what took place at a meeting. According to township Manager Sandra Pudliner, if a meeting is video recorded, minutes would still need to be prepared.