BERLIN – Town officials deemed an audio-visual system upgrade too expensive to pursue in Berlin.
The Berlin Town Council last week reviewed pricing related to installing a new audio-visual system at town hall. Council members agreed not to meet with company representatives once they saw the system’s annual subscription fee of more than $50,000.
“It’s not worth it,” Mayor Zack Tyndall said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be too expensive.”
In the spring, the town asked Cards Technology to be begin researching audio-visual options for council chambers at town hall. While the town currently uses Facebook live to broadcast meetings, officials wanted to explore other options. Research revealed that most local communities work with Granicus, the company that offers Swagit. Swagit features agenda management, streaming, video storage and closed captioning, among other things.
“It’s robust, it’s user friendly, it looks good,” Town Administrator Mary Bohlen said.
She added, however, that the equipment cost $84,000 and the annual subscription was $51,768.
“We can have them come, demonstrate their system, and you can ask them questions about what they might be able to trim out, eliminate, that might bring that price down,” Bohlen said. “But it is still going to be a hefty price.”
The town had budgeted $50,000 in ARPA funding for audio-visual system improvements.
Councilman Steve Green suggested the Swagit system was more than the town needed.
“We’re going from the Pinto to the Cadillac,” he said.
Bohlen said tweaking the Swagit proposal by eliminating a camera or two likely wouldn’t have a huge impact on the system cost. She added that the town’s existing audio system couldn’t be improved much.
“It’s not about the microphones and the speakers,” she said. “It’s about the shape of the room. The low ceiling, the long room. This is about as good as the audio system is going to get.”
Councilman Jack Orris pointed out that when the town hosted the Senate hearing last month the audio had been fine. Bohlen said the speakers that day had made a point to speak directly into the microphones.
“They used our equipment,” she said. “They used our mics and speakers.”
Tyndall said he agreed with council members that the Swagit system was too expensive for Berlin. Green asked what the town would do with the allocated ARPA funding.
“Let’s see where the projects come in and let’s go from there,” he said.