Board transcripts to remain on Web

Despite an eight-month backlog, Albemarle County will continue to post online “near verbatim” transcripts of Board of Supervisors’ discussions, the panel decided Wednesday.

The county had considered switching to a less comprehensive “summary” style of minutes in an attempt to speed up the process and cut down on staff overtime costs.

Yet several of the supervisors heard from their constituents that such a move would make the government’s deliberations more opaque.

“We owe our citizenry this transparency,” Supervisor Ann Mallek said at an afternoon board meeting.

The number of Board of Supervisors’ meetings has increased dramatically in recent years, and that has helped to create the backlog in the board’s minutes.

The minutes are posted on the county’s Web site after an approval process from top county officials.

The supervisors voted 5-1 Wednesday to allocate up to $35,000 to help the staff members expedite the time it takes to produce the time-consuming transcripts.

“This is a job where you cannot get the job done without adequate resources,” Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker said.

The county also produces a podcast recording of its meetings, but supervisors said the quality of the audio is sometimes sketchy and it can be tricky to tell who is speaking. The near-verbatim minutes are intended to provide residents with a resource for better understanding complicated local government matters.

“It’s important to the public that there be an accurate representation of what happened in the meetings,” Rooker said.

Board Chairman Kenneth C. Boyd was the only supervisor to vote against the measure. He questioned whether anyone was actually looking at the minutes. If not, he said, why spend the money?