Hamilton Council Votes to Study Keeping Public Meeting Videos Public

Hamilton city councillors on the Governance Sub-Committee voted to study the implications of keeping public meetings streamed on YouTube on YouTube.

TPR editor Joey Coleman (me) wrote to Council requesting the City end its practice of removing public meeting videos from YouTube whenever an advisory committee is critical of Council, or there is conduct the City does not wish the public to see. [Letter text at end of story]

In January 2023, the new City Council voted to change the City’s record retention bylaw to retain copies of council meeting videos permanently.

However, the City’s updated Records Retention Bylaw is unclear regarding how the public can access public meeting videos.

City staff have interpreted the Council’s intent as permitting the removal of public meeting videos from YouTube.

On September 12, 2024, TPR wrote to Council asking they direct the City Clerk and City Manager to no longer remove public meeting videos from public viewing.

New City Clerk Matthew Trennum requested Council provide him the opportunity to return with recommendations, and possible cost implications.

“There is no real policy language that I can speak to that describes how long things are to remain on the external website,” Trennum said. “The reason I’d like to report back to the committee on this is just to ensure I have some proper data and information with regards to what we need to consider when we make those decisions.”

“We continue through time to keep a video recording of every committee meeting comes at a cost. Comes at space on our website. So yes, they are permanent records and yes, they are public records. So an individual would certainly be able to request them and have access to them.”

Trennum states the City will no longer charge freedom of information fees to access council videos or receive voting records.

(The former City Clerk refused to release council voting records and required a freedom of information request. The City charged FOI fees and only provided the data in PDF format.)

The City of Hamilton removed the recent Council Audit, Finance, and Administration Committee meeting video from its public YouTube page, following TPR reporting on the fact that Ward 14 Councillor Mike Spadafora was in a moving motor vehicle (likely as a passenger) and distracted during the meeting.

Letter to Council

Dear Hamilton City Council Governance Review Sub-Committee,

I am bringing to your attention the need to clarify the City of Hamilton’s Records Retention By-law 11-040.

The By-law is silent on what constitutes public access to the records associated with audio and visual recordings [past livestreams] of meetings required to be open under the Municipal Act.

In By-Law 23-007, the Council amended By-Law 11-040 being a By-law to Establish Retention Periods for Records of the City of Hamilton (“Records Retention By-law 11-040”) that “records associated with audio and visual recordings of Council Meetings, Standing Committee Meetings, Subcommittee and Advisory Committee Meetings” to be “permanent” records to be retained and accessible to the public.

However, the City of Hamilton continues its practice of removing public meeting videos from YouTube, and has destroyed records in contravention of Records Retention By-law 11-040.

Records associated with audio and visual recordings of Council Meetings, Standing Committee Meetings, Subcommittee and Advisory Committee Meetings, including the recent August 21, 2024, meeting of the Audit, Finance, and Administration Committee, are no longer listed on the City’s public YouTube page.

[Note: all ‘sub-committees’ and ‘advisory’ committees are Local Boards as defined by Ontario’s Superior Court in Kroetsch v. Integrity Commissioner for the City of Hamilton, 2021 ONSC 7982. This letter does not address the need to update the Records Retention By-law 11-040 to reflect the expanded definition of Local Board.]

The ‘unlisting’ of public meetings is a practice the then Acting City Clerk told Ontario Ombudsman would not continue. (https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=404804)

On April 18, 2023, the City of Hamilton failed to stream a public meeting of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Sub-Committee.

An open meeting complaint was filed.

During the Ombudsman investigation, the City of Hamilton deleted the video recording of the meeting. (For the purposes of By-law 11-040, the record was destroyed.)

Due to the destruction of the record, the Ontario Ombudsman could not determine if the City had violated the open meeting requirement.

The Ombudsman deemed it necessary to caution the City of Hamilton.

“The City should be mindful that it is an offence under the Ombudsman Act to wilfully mislead the Ombudsman or to obstruct an Ombudsman investigation. All provincial government organizations and municipalities, universities and school boards must co-operate with the Ombudsman’s investigations,” reads the letter from Ombudsman Paul Dubé, dated November 16, 2023.

The deletion of the video was also contrary to the amendments implemented by Bylaw 23-007.

I request the Governance Committee amend the Records Retention By-law 11-040 to clarify the intent of the By-law by adding procedures for public access to records associated with audio and visual recordings of public meetings.

In the interim, I request direction be given to the City Manager and City Clerk to immediately cease the practice of removing, deleting, and/or ‘unlisting’ public meeting videos from city-controlled online platforms.

Sincerely,

Joey Coleman
Resident of Hamilton

Production Details
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Published: September 17, 2024
Last updated: September 17, 2024
Author: Joey Coleman
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