Whitewater Community Television has provided Wayne County’s commissioners a $40,000 proposal at a rate of $250 per hour to livestream and store video of county meetings under the new state law that takes effect July 1.
The county has tested a system of handling the livestreaming and storage itself using an Meeting Owl 360-degree camera. Commissioner Jeff Plasterer said during the commissioners’ June 4 meeting that the county is ready to proceed on its own as a lower-cost option.
Commissioner Brad Dwenger provided three reasons to use WCTV’s services: WCTV is a service for the community and its existence provides value to the community, WCTV is an unbiased third party that would provide transparency, and the county’s IT department would be taxed if the county proceeded on its own.
“I would prefer — this commissioner, I’m not speaking for anybody else — that we seek an avenue to support WCTV and have them do at a minimum council and commissioner meetings,” Dwenger said.
Commissioner Aaron Roberts also noted that WCTV handles audio and video, while the county IT department generally deals with computer-based issues. He supports WCTV covering all county meetings.
“It goes back to WCTV has the expertise with the audio/visual side of it,” he said.
Commissioners will explore options and costs they’ll then present council, with the flexibility of moving forward with the county’s system July 1, if necessary.
Recycling website
Dakota Bertsch, the county’s recycling coordinator, showed commissioners preliminary work on a recycling webpage. She is also working to develop a recycling Facebook page.
Bertsch was moved from the Wayne County Soil and Water Conservation District to the commissioners department with the dissolution of Wayne Union Recycling. The county continues working with Richmond Sanitary District to develop county recycling. The sanitary district intends to expand curbside recycling beyond Richmond to reduce the amount of recyclables being put into the New Paris Pike Landfill, hoping to extend the landfill’s life.
Plasterer said there is not a well-thought-out set of objectives yet for the recycling department. He even wondered if Bertsch should eventually work for the sanitation department. Dwenger said he envisioned her position as working with the sanitation district, and added that the county could also benefit from Bertsch’s grant-writing skills while searching for additional revenue streams.
Other actions
- Commissioners unanimously reappointed Plasterer to the county’s redevelopment commission.
- A unanimous vote recommended to the redevelopment commission that it capture 100% of the tax increment finance money available to it.
A version of this article appeared in the June 11 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.