Harris County Begins Live Streaming And Archiving Court Meetings on November 12

Harris County will begin live streaming meetings of Harris County Commissioners Court to the public starting Tuesday morning, a step designed to make county government even more accessible to the public it serves. Anyone with access to the Internet can log on to http://www.harriscountytx.gov/CourtVideo.aspx and watch entire scheduled court meetings from the perspective of cameras mounted around the Commissioners Court courtroom.

Links to the live streaming also will be posted on Harris County’s main website – www.harriscountytx.gov – under the “Court Agenda” heading. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett also intends to include a direct link to the live streaming from his website, www.judgeemmett.org.

Members of Commissioners Court unanimously approved a proposal this summer to begin making its meetings available to the public by Internet as soon as possible. Officials with the county’s Information Technology Center then set to work implementing the policy and were able to complete the process quickly. The result is a more open and transparent Harris County government and a valuable research tool in having archived court meetings.

“Commissioners Court has shown a real commitment to opening county government to as many of its constituents as possible,” Emmett said of the live streaming. “Members of the public can now see its representatives working live, or they can access it by archive later at a more convenient time. Either way, it’s a major step forward towards transparency, and I thank Bruce High and his employees in the Information Technology Center for making it happen so quickly.”