Livingston, TN—January 2020… Nestled in rolling green hills and hardwood forests, replete with creeks and streams and blessed with diverse wildlife, the Town of Livingston (www.cityoflivingston.net) sits about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee. Everyone knows their neighbor and will speak to strangers on the street in this friendly, peaceful town of 4,020.
Transparency is an increasing concern for many city and town governments, and Livingston is no exception. “We wanted to provide a more open government through live video streaming of our meetings,” confirms Livingston Mayor Curtis Hayes, Jr. “But we did not have video equipment in our City Hall conference room, nor did we have a speaker system, so it was difficult to hear, especially for some folks. The room is used for every public meeting, including the Livingston City Council, the Planning Commission, and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.”
While attending a conference of the Tennessee Association of Municipal Clerks and Recorders, Mayor Hayes learned about Televic video and audio conferencing equipment. He then contacted Televic to inquire about the new D-Cerno plug-and-play digital discussion system, a complete solution in which up to 50 D-Cerno microphone units connect to a central engine. The central unit handles audio routing and provides built-in audio recording on a USB flash drive, ensuring all participants can be heard for transcription of minutes and archiving.
The Mayor and City Council tested the system and were impressed by the system’s quality and simplicity of operation, so they invested in nine Televic D-Cerno microphones. The microphones have individual on/off switches, and because each microphone has a built-in speaker for monitoring the mix from the central unit, the town did not need to purchase a PA system. The Televic D-Cerno microphone system provided exactly what they needed at an affordable cost.
With the audio issues resolved, there remained the desire to stream video of meetings and archive them to the town’s website. Mayor Hayes found the solution in the Televic T-Cam system, a package that includes two point/tilt/zoom cameras, software, and equipment to facilitate streaming to the Internet. The T-Cam system allows unattended video management of a meeting by providing cameras that automatically move to the person when they push their microphone button. “It’s a camera system that follows the mics, the Mayor explains, “and the video is crystal clear. Now we can live stream our meetings, archive the meetings for our records, and watch any meeting at will.”
Because the T-CAM system is compatible with any Televic microphone system, it combines with Livingston’s Televic D-Cerno system to create a fully autonomous solution for live streaming meetings. “Using the Televic cameras and microphones,” concludes Mayor Hayes, “we are able to provide a better form of open government.”
