Bayside Community Board Starts Posting Meeting Recordings Online

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Queens Community Board 11 has started publishing audio recordings of its monthly meetings, after the proposal was approved almost unanimously by board members this month.

The proposal was backed 39-1 at the board's Dec. 7 meeting after a lively discussion about the merits of posting videos of meetings, rather than just audio, and what it means to make a video publicly available on YouTube.

The proposal does not dictate how soon recordings must be posted after each meeting, but Queens Community Board 11 Chair Mike Budabin told members the audio would be made available in a reasonable timeframe.

Audio of the board's December meeting has already been posted on its website.

“The idea here is we’re going to try and do it quickly," Budabin said. "There’s every motivation to do so.”

Community board meetings are open to the general public, but boards differ on how much they share afterwards about what transpired.

All community boards write down what happened — records known formally as meeting minutes — but some boards take much more detailed notes than others.

Some boards share recordings of meetings. Queens Community Boards 2, 3 and 4 are among those that have published videos of their meetings. Others, like Queens Community Board 11, are just starting to dip a toe into the practice.

Adriana Aviles, who chairs the board's public relations committee and brought the proposal to the full board, said a lot of members were concerned about publishing videos of general board meetings and posting recordings of committee meetings.

“Where are we going with this? These are things to think about,” board member Christine Haider said during the meeting. “There were so many questions tonight that I feel people, they aren’t totally comfortable with it.”

Another member, Ben Turner, countered, “We’re not exactly breaking new ground here.”