City Council unanimously approved to authorize the purchase of multimedia services offering live streaming coverage of City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission meetings at its meeting March 4.

Swagit Productions, LLC will provide the services to record video of the council and commission's meetings, as well as offer archiving for public on-demand viewing for tablets, smartphones and computers. The city will own the content and transfer the meetings to DVDs, which will be maintained by the city secretary's office. The general public will not have access or the rights for public download, City Secretary Jodi Brown said.

Bryan Halley, Swagit co-founder and director of video technology and affairs said the service allows for video indexing, which organizes each meeting's video content in sections according to the agenda format. Users will be able to click on the section they are interested in watching.

Before the resolution was approved, Mayor William D. Tate talked about the importance of the residents' communication with city officials.

"We need to encourage people to still come to the meetings," he said.