Ellensburg City Attorney Chris Horner told the City Council at a Sept. study session that the Department of Justice has issued new Americans with Disabilities Act requirements that will apply to Ellensburg’s online meeting content beginning in 2027 and that the requirements will affect any recordings posted to the web.

Horner said the city must weigh costs and technical choices if it expands recordings beyond regular council meetings to advisory boards and commissions. “The big wrinkle in all of this is the Department of Justice has come out with new Americans with Disability Act requirements for audio and video recordings,” Horner said.

The issue matters because staff estimated the city could be looking at 156 to 192 board-and-committee meetings a year if recording is expanded, with monthly captioning needs of roughly 1,500 to 1,700 meeting minutes. IT Director Jim Gaiten told council there is no statutory requirement that every public meeting be audio or video recorded, but that recorded meetings must be retained. “If, however, the governing body or advisory committee does record it, then it must be retained for 6 years,” Gaiten said.

Staff outlined several cost drivers: live participation and virtual public comment require paid videoconferencing licenses; Zoom business licenses the city discussed cost about $690 per license per year. Outside captioning services that use human captioners were quoted at roughly $100–$250 per hour; automated captioning services are sold in minute blocks (one example given: 500 minutes for $900 per month, 2,000 minutes for $3,200 per month). Staff presented a broad, preliminary total-range estimate for a full program of video recording and ADA compliance from roughly $100,000 to $330,000 annually, noting the numbers are rough estimates only.

City staff described the current systems: council and study sessions are recorded through a contract with ECTV, which manages multiple room cameras and uploads video to YouTube and a local cable channel; CivicClerk (the city’s agenda system) pulls the ECTV video into the city website and provides time-stamped links. “When I’m doing the minutes, I can time stamp everything. So when it goes onto our website, it pulls from the ECTV feed and has all the time stamps on it,” said a staff member involved with minutes and records.

Staff warned that adding recordings for many advisory groups would increase storage needs, software licensing, staff time to set up and monitor recordings (estimated setup 15–30 minutes, in-meeting monitoring 30–90 minutes, and post-meeting processing 30–60 minutes per meeting) and the burden of verifying captions and descriptive audio across multiple platforms (YouTube, cable, CivicClerk). The city currently stores videos via CivicClerk’s cloud service; staff said that platform reports “unlimited” storage under the contract but cautioned that technology and vendor terms can change.

Councilmembers raised concerns about volunteer comfort with being recorded, staff overtime, liability for inaccurate captions or descriptive text, and whether the city must stop a meeting if required accessibility functionality fails. Horner and staff said some questions — including whether audio-only recordings would satisfy future ADA accessibility rules — require legal and technical follow-up.

After discussion, the council did not adopt a policy change. Instead members asked staff to gather additional detail and return with options and costs; councilmembers suggested comparing peer cities that record advisory meetings, assessing impacts on volunteer recruitment, and preparing for the 2027 compliance window. The council asked staff to bring more information back in December or January so the city could allow enough lead time for any required changes.

The study session closed without a formal vote on recording policy; staff will prepare follow-up materials and legal guidance for future council consideration.