Commissioners back action-only minutes, direct staff to preserve meeting videos and transcripts

The Board of County Commissioners discussed a plan to publish action-only meeting minutes while preserving complete meeting video and transcripts for context and public access. Commissioners and staff signaled support for a minimalist written record augmented by timestamped video recordings available online, and directed staff to adopt a redundant records workflow that does not rely on a single vendor.

The county's clerical staff demonstrated a CivicPlus minutes-and-video workflow and said CivicPlus can attach vote records and link portions of the meeting video to agenda items. Commissioner Lynn Padgett and others said the video must remain accessible over time and urged storing copies in the county's Google Drive as a backup to CivicPlus. Commissioner Michelle Nauer warned against vendor lock-in and recommended multiple backups to guard against future changes in file formats or vendor outages. Communications staff reported the county already uses a Vimeo channel for some videos and that uploading there is not a large extra step.

Staff said technical work remains: timestamping during meetings is available but not yet configured for all meetings, and some users experienced link or playback problems when opening the recorded files. IT staff said Google Drive has built-in redundancy and that county network backups exist; they will present recommended retention and backup policies during an upcoming IT policy work session.

The group also discussed automated transcripts generated from Zoom recordings. Commissioners expressed interest in posting transcripts as a searchable text record for public use but raised concerns about errors and AI "hallucinations." Staff said the county could capture raw AI-generated transcripts on the file server but should not publish them without human review. The county's IT team was asked to draft a formal IT policy that addresses AI-generated records and sets a human-in-the-loop review process.

Staff were asked to continue several practices immediately: save master meeting packets and meeting video to the county Google Drive in a consistent folder structure, keep a copy on the county's CivicPlus site, and continue uploading video to the county Vimeo channel while staff evaluate long-term options. Commissioners asked that future minutes retain a concise record of formal motions, vote tallies and any explicit direction given to staff so that action items remain searchable in PDF form while video provides the fuller record.

Staff said they will return with an IT-policy draft that includes recommendations for email retention, long-term archival storage, and guidelines for handling AI-generated transcripts. Commissioners and staff agreed to revisit any changes to the public-facing workflows after the IT policy and a security review are complete.