The Quantico Town Council is in violation of state law.
If you want to record video, audio, or take photographs during any of the Town Council’s public meetings, you now must first ask the council for permission.
The governing board of the tiny town inside the boundary of Quantico Marine Corps Base voted four to one on April 9 for the mandate.
Here’s the exact motion as read before it was approved:
“The town council meetings may not be videotaped, photographed, or audio taped without expressed approval of the town council.”
Virginia law states anyone may attend, videotape, audio record or photograph a public meeting. There are some exceptions to the rule — un-courteous things like flash photography or jamming microphones in the faces of council members are usually frowned upon.
On an audio recording of the April 9 meeting obtained from Quantico Town Municipal Offices (each meeting is audio-recorded for records purposes), it was clear some council members were more worried about what would happen with videos of meetings after the meeting ended.
“How do I know you what you are going to do with it?” asked Town Councilman Rusty Kuhns. “I have no control over what they do with it.”
Mayor Kevin Brown is heard on the recording encouraging council members not to vote in favor of the new mandate. The mandate comes after a resident volunteered to videotape the meetings and make them available online so residents could view them.
You can hear more comments on the meeting recording.
“I do not want our proceedings filmed,” said one council member.
“What’s the problem with him coming to our office and asking for the tape [of the meeting]?” asked another.
“If he walks in and starts taping, we can simply get up and walk out, that’s the choices that we have, people…” another said.
Another councilwoman questioned whether or not residents could request to hear the audio recordings of the meetings, asserting they were “town property” and that they didn’t have to be provided to residents upon request.
All of this has the Virginia Coalition for Open Government unnerved. They say a motion like this is not made, even in the tiniest towns in the state like it was in Quantico.
“The statute guarantees the public a right to record the proceedings, that statute is good for the benefit of the public not for the benefit of the council members,” said Virginia Coalition for Open Government Executive Director Megan Rhyne. “And since these are open meetings, anyone should be able to record it.”
Rhyne said this is the portion of Virginia law that allows such recordings:
2.2-3707(H). Any person may photograph, film, record or otherwise reproduce any portion of a meeting required to be open. The public body conducting the meeting may adopt rules governing the placement and use of equipment necessary for broadcasting, photographing, filming or recording a meeting to prevent interference with the proceedings, but shall not prohibit or otherwise prevent any person from photographing, filming, recording, or otherwise reproducing any portion of a meeting required to be open. No public body shall conduct a meeting required to be open in any building or facility where such recording devices are prohibited.
While they do make audio recordings of their town council meetings, as well as take minutes, the towns of Quantico and Occoquan are the only jurisdictions in Prince William County that do not post audio and video of their regular public meetings on their municipal websites to be easily accessed by residents.
The process of posting video and audio can be expensive and time consuming.
Last year, the nearby Town of Dumfries upgraded its website video system that records and plays back town council meetings, implementing a system called Granicus. Residents may now log onto the town’s website and watch meetings as they happen or archived videos of past meetings.
The system also integrates the meeting agenda into the video so viewers may click on any agenda item and watch the portion of video that corresponds to that item.
Prince William County uses the same system when it comes to their Board of Supervisors meetings. Manassas City and Stafford County also provide live and archived audio and video of public meetings.
The Quantico Town Council will meet again Thursday, May 14, 2015. The recording ban is expected to be a topic of conversation.
