Student Effort to Stream Public Meetings Makes Ballot

SF WEEKLY -- San Franciscans may soon be able to comment on public meetings from the comfort of their couches. In November, the city will vote on a ballot measure that requires live-streaming of public meetings, creates a system to allow public testimony via the internet, and lets people request that specific agenda items be heard at a predetermined time. “At the real root of all of this is large segments of our community and population are not participating in the decisions that affect their ability to live in San Francisco,” says David Lee, a Political Science professor at San Francisco State University and president of San Franciscans for Open Government. Lee assigned his 200-student American politics class the project that later morphed into the ballot measure. It’s considered the first of its kind in a major American city.