Those attending Bartholomew County Council meetings in person and online should be able to hear the proceedings better in the future after a proposal approved on Monday.
The Bartholomew County commissioners approved an agreement with local audio-visual consultant FORTÉ, until recently known as AVI Systems, to install positional microphones in the Bartholomew County Council chambers. Scott Mayes, Bartholomew County IT Director, said the microphones will make it easier for the public to hear when council members are speaking.
The audio upgrades will cost the county $37,873. Mayes said the money will come out of the telecommunications fund.
The room in the Bartholomew County Governmental Office Building at 440 Third St. where the council meets had undergone a remodel which resulted in a “bad echo” and poor acoustics in the room, Mayes said.
The county’s maintenance department solved that problem with some new panels that were installed but Mayes said there’s still an issue with “dynamic speakers.”
“We have people that speak loudly, we have people who are very soft-spoken,” Mayes told commissioners. “And because of the size of that room, we’d like to upgrade to the positional microphones at each of the locations where people sit.”
There will be “a lot of labor” involved in repositioning and upgrading audio equipment in the room, Mayes said, but county officials believe it’ll result in a better experience for the public.
“With the correction of the echoing, the upgrades to the equipment, they (FORTÉ) are very confident that’s going to solve our problem in that room,” according to Mayes.
Commissioner Larry Kleinhenz, R-District 1, noted he and his two colleagues attended a county council meeting in April, saying he felt embarrassment because it was so hard for those in person to hear what was being said in the room from where the public sits.
He also observed that FORTÉ has worked on the room “multiple times” over the past couple of years and indicated to Mayes that he doesn’t have “a lot of confidence” in the company.
Mayes responded that some of the previous efforts were in attempt to upgrade the room, while also being mindful of spending and trying to get the best out of equipment that is in the back-half of its 10-year life cycle.
“We’ve reached the end of that game, and we just got to do something more drastic,” Mayes said.
The commissioners during their meeting on April 28 renewed a service agreement with FORTÉ for $6,411.25 to enable the IT department to call on the company’s representatives in case an immediate repair is needed or there is some type of technical issue.
The audio/visual system was purchased for around $212,000 in 2020 and installed in the commissioners and council chambers in 2021.
“As a final thought, I think when the public takes their time to come to a public meeting, they need to be able to hear what’s going on,” said Commissioner Carl Lienhoop, R-District 2.
