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Council Rock CR Board Budgets Cyberspace

Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Bucks County Courier Times

CR Board Budgets Cyberspace The Council Rock school board plans to go live with questions and e-mail from a cable TV audience during tomorrow night's budget hearing.

By Gwen Shrift
Courier Times
gshrift@calkinsnewspapers.com

If you can see Council Rock school board President Jim DiDio in the same media niche as CNN's Larry King-or even if you can't- a live call-in scheduled for tomorrow night's school board meeting is for you.

The planned format is familiar to viewers of big-time cable shows such as King's. But instead of "Hi, Gary from Montana, you're on the air," it may be more like, "Hello, Joe from Holland, you're live at Council Rock" as the board meeting goes out over the local cable system.

Joe from Holland can also go into cyberspace if he wants. In a first for local governments in the area, a direct e-mail address for the board has been set up for the duration of tomorrow's budget hearing. To get involved To participate in the Council Rock School District's hearing on the preliminary 1999- 2000 budget, call 357-6800 or send e-mail via, budget99@crsd.org Both features are available starting at 7:30 p.m. through the end of the meeting.

The hearing starts tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. in the Northampton Township Municipal Building. The board is presenting a $123 million preliminary budget to district residents. As usual, the meeting will be broadcast live on Suburban Cable Channel 23 to residents of the district's five municipalities.

Viewers can reach the meeting by calling 357-6800 or by e-mail at budget99@crsd.org.

DiDio is scheduled to be linked by earphone to workers who will answer phones, tell him who's on the line and what his or her question is, Video Gold Productions, which also runs a live call-in show every month for Bensalem Mayor Joe DiGirolamo.

Callers will be patched through to the public address system in the meeting room and to the cable system. The calls will be taken in real time - no delay has been established, as it sometimes is for live broadcasts to keep nasty language off the air.

Workers will also be monitoring e-mail by computer, picking up messages to relay to the board.

Predicting the size of the crowd that will show up for the Council Rock budget hearing is an inexact science. Some years, huge numbers of residents showed up; in other years, only a few people turned out.

This year, there's no tax increase, but that doesn't mean everyone is happy with district fiscal trends. Spending usually draws heated public comment even outside budget season.

With this in mind, members of the board questioned whether they should schedule the meeting in a big venue such as the auditorium at Council Rock High School.