Release Updated February 4, 2021
Contact:
Public Information Officer Mary Swaney
mary.swaney@islamorada.fl.us
305-664-6411
Real-time Closed Captioning of Village Council Meetings Began January 14, 2021 on Comcast Broadcast
and on February 4, 2021 on live web streamed meetings
In 2017, Islamorada began providing closed captioned recordings of Village Council Meetings after the meetings occurred. Links to the closed-captioned meetings have been posted on the Archived Meetings page of the website. Real-time closed captioning of Village Council meetings was not possible without upgrades to the Village’s audio-visual booth equipment, expansion of internet bandwidth capabilities at the Community Center, and the purchase of an automated captioning engine with closed captioning encoder.
With the audio-visual booth upgrades at the Community Center completed in 2018 and the internet bandwidth expansion completed in 2020, the final step was the purchase and installation of the closed captioning encoder. The encoder was installed and tested on January 12, 2021. We are pleased to announce that beginning January 14, 2021, Village Council Meeting and other Village meeting broadcasts have real-time closed captioning on the Comcast broadcast and live closed captioning began on the webcasts on February 4, 2021. The live closed captioning is available on all Council Meetings, meetings of the Local Planning Agency and other Village meetings held in the community center that are regularly broadcast. The closed captioning is guaranteed at 90% accuracy.
The costs incurred for the “after the fact” closed captioning have been $7,000.00 to $8,000.00 per year. The great benefit is providing the community real-time service and adding closed captioning to LPA and other Village meeting broadcasts that were not previously archived with closed captions.
Reminder of Coronavirus-related Precaution: Only Council Members, essential staff members required to conduct the meeting and prescheduled presenters will be in physical attendance at Village Council Meetings due to the limited capacity in the Community Center. this practice will continue until further notice. Please view the last page of the meeting agenda for all the options to participate in the Council Meeting.