I personally believe in the principle of Open Government which means that democracy should be citizen-inclusive and collaborative to create and reform the very communities that we live.

Current Whitehall elected officials continue to reject Councilman Stone Sobieralski’s offer to personally pay for cameras and professional re-writing of council chambers so that internet access may be installed. They push back on Stone, because of his age and being a first term councilman while bringing forth the false belief that Stone could not possibly know anyone who would be qualified to do the job right.

Furthermore, T-Mobile installed 5G on the tower on the borough complex and pays $12100/year to Whitehall for the rent on revenue line 342.1000 on the 2023 budget. To my knowledge, T-Mobile has never been approached to assist with the internet access of the administrative needs of 100 Borough Park Drive.

Therefore, at my own personal expense, on a citizen volunteer basis, I have been streaming the council meetings with the Free Open Source software of Jitsi.

Live Streaming and Recordings of Whitehall Council filmed by Beth Lynn Eicher

Due to popular demand, I will continue to life stream the council meetings. First and third Wednesday of the month.

Phone: +1.512.647.1431 dial pin at prompt 1506692329

Browser or Smartphone App “Jitsi” https://meet.jit.si/UnofficialWhitehallBoro

No Recording 5/17
Sorry folks, I was unable to attend and record the 5/17 due to personal illness.

This outage has made be re-think how best to provide this service by doing a direct to Youtube feed from any phone. Stay tuned for details.

I’ve created a YouTube Playlist of the videos that I have that pertain to Whitehall Borough Government.

5/3/2023
This council meeting was recorded with my laptop and streamed live on Jit.si by me, Beth Lynn Eicher. No government resources were used. This was done cost-free. Internet was via my Tmobile 5G data from my cell phone.

4/19/2023
This council meeting was recorded with my laptop and streamed live on Jit.si by me, Beth Lynn Eicher. No government resources were used. This was done cost-free. Internet was via my Tmobile 5G data from my cell phone.

I intend to continue a best-effort live stream at council because the people have a right to know.

The public is only invited to come to the meetings in person in Council Chambers on the Borough administration floor of the municipal complex at 100 Borough Park Drive. This is approximately a 1/3 of the size of the community room on the library floor and does not allow for social distancing.

The only committee of Whitehall that is open to public is Mayor Nowak’s environment committee.

The rest of the committees are of seated council and their appointments. When they meet and exactly who is on these committees is not public knowledge. Thus, stakeholders are excluded from the conversation in these closed-door government meetings.

The option to hold “executive session” closed door meetings has been over-utilized. It was in “executive session” that Whitehall Council amended the agenda of the 5/17 meeting to include the disappointing open letter regarding the pool construction problems causing delays. They could have announced this as part of the agenda on 5/16 at 7PM. Since 5/16 was primary day and the pools were open until 8PM, I find this awful convenient.

I personally would not be running for Whitehall Council if this community was open to new ideas and transparency.