Fulton Sun

Fulton residents can watch live online tonight as the Fulton City Council receives an update on some recent technological advances for the city — including a new website where citizens can watch streaming video of Fulton Area Community Television.

“We’ve had several proposals for companies to come in and set that up for us, but they were all expensive,” Director of Administration Bill Johnson said. “The city IT staff was able to use what we have, and with very little expenditure we were able to get it set up.

“Any time citizens want to, they can go there and watch, so if you’re out of town in Texas or Florida and they want to watch a live city council meeting, they can, wherever they are.”

He said setting up a streaming video site — available at http://streaming.fultonmo.org — was a step Fulton administration took because “we’re just trying to make government more open and transparent, and available to the public.”

Johnson said the city has “looked at other things to bring us more in-line with the times” such as paying utility bills online, but it was cost-prohibitive.

“With all the credit card fees, we’re not prepared for the city to lose that amount of revenue,” Johnson said, noting many of the credit card companies lay claim to at least 3 percent of the amount charged. “That’s quite a bit of money when you add up everybody that would make use of it.”