Cheers to the decision by the Vashon Health Care District to investigate a technology solution that would, among other things, allow them to record and archive their public meetings, as mentioned in our page 1 story this week.

It’s a powerful way to augment transparency, trust and accountability.

Plenty of island government districts, including the Health Care District, can and should improve transparency by recording and sharing video of their public meetings, as has been suggested to the Health Care District by islander Ron Smothermon at previous district meetings.

Many of our districts have already invested in a video setup to allow the public to watch their meetings on Zoom. Why not simply go the extra step and record and share these meetings? City councils across the state already do so, and the Vashon-Maury Community Council has shared many of its meetings, too. Vashon Island School District posts meeting records to YouTube, a wonderful solution. School districts are required by recent state law to record the audio of their meetings, at least.

The benefits are simple: When our leaders are doing great work, transparency helps them prove it. And when need to improve, transparency helps us know about it.

For those who want to pass on feedback to government agencies without being caught on video, our public district commissioners would surely welcome the opportunity to speak to constituents over the phone or in-person, conversations which could be arranged ahead of time over email. But there’s no expectation of a right to privacy at a public governmental meeting, especially for someone who takes the mic to speak.

We take pains to include the full context of quotes at meetings, especially controversial ones. Having a full recording makes that process easier and lets everyone inspect the record to see if The Beachcomber got it right.

True, many districts aren’t legally required to post these recordings. But state law encourages it. According to RCW 42.30.220, “Public agencies are encouraged to make an audio or video recording of, or to provide an online streaming option for, all regular meetings of its governing body, and to make recordings of these meetings available online for a minimum of six months.”

The benefits of recording and sharing meetings are numerous and obvious: The public can see precisely what was said without waiting for minutes to be posted. Disagreements over who-said-what can be solved immediately. Working parents and other residents too busy to attend can access the public process. The public record of our community comes into sharper focus.

Personally, our small and overworked staff would love the flexibility to catch up on meetings later when they clash with other events we must cover.

We think this is a task well worth the time. Like all good habits, maybe we’ll one day look back and wonder: “Why weren’t we doing it before?”

And in the meantime, here’s an even easier task for our local government districts. A scan of a few island agencies indicates they haven’t posted their meeting minutes on their websites since January. That means months of meetings that the public can’t currently access. Let’s get that fixed.

This editorial has been corrected; it previously stated that local government districts “must post meeting minutes and agendas promptly,” which was a flawed interpretation of state law. The Washington State Open Public Meetings Act does require the prompt public posting of agendas before meetings, but there is no such requirement for meeting minutes. Minutes must be recorded promptly and made available to the public, but state law does not require agencies to post those minutes to their websites .