By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com

South Lyon City Council is upgrading equipment that will improve the ability for the community to keep up with all that’s going on.

Members of the City’s Cable Commission recently put out for bid upgrades to the City’s playback system for its local government access channel, for broadcasting City Council meetings and other related on-demand programming.

Commission member Steve Kauakonen said it’s been 6-7 years since they last upgraded and now they feel they need to step up to the next mid-tier level. The current system, he says, breaks every 2 to 3 weeks requiring a reset and the City is coming upon hardware storage issues. The new system would be more stable and allow for remote updating, which is unavailable with the current equipment.

Kauakonen said that it will also set them up for more exciting things in the near future, such as broadcasting parades.

Kauakonen told City Council that the idea for 2023 is to have a dedicated website for people to watch programming when they wish. Currently, City Council meetings are uploaded on YouTube the day after they are held, but Kauakenen says their own website could make them available for residents immediately.

Being on their own site also protects them from sites like YouTube taking down their meetings for whatever reason. This happened a couple of times to the Livingston County Board of Commissioners last year, when it is believed YouTube removed meetings due to what they deemed as spreading medical misinformation that was believed to be made by the public during public comment, and not from Commissioners. Kauakonen said that having their on-demand services being on a dedicated website would keep South Lyon clear of situations like that.

City Council unanimously approved a bid for the project in the amount of $10,303.