T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY From left to right, Councilor Melisa Fonseca, City Clerk Alicia Hunter and Mayor Joel Greer engage in a discussion on a proposed technology improvement package primarily focused on agenda management, video streaming of meetings and the posting of municipal codes on the city website during Monday night’s meeting.

A discussion item on the Marshalltown city council agenda Monday night sparked a lengthy and at times charged conversation about the translation of meetings into other languages and which platform the city should use to broadcast them.

City Clerk Alicia Hunter kicked it off and explained that staff had proposed an upgrade to the agenda, meeting and minutes management system they currently use, with various new features available through CivicClerk and the add-ons Live Meeting Manager and CivicMedia. She showed examples of how the technology has been utilized in other cities and said one of the primary objectives was to gain the ability to post agendas in Spanish. The new video streaming system would also timestamp individual agenda items.

Councilor Gary Thompson asked Hunter if Spanish would be the only language offered as part of the package, and she said they could be uploaded in other languages — though city staff would ultimately be responsible for the translation. From there, she dove into the translation of live videos through closed captioning, which would cost the city on a per word basis. Currently, the city uses YouTube at no cost to stream and store meetings, but Hunter said they could be moved to the city website instead through the CivicMedia add-on package.

YouTube has a closed captioning option for Spanish and a host of other languages, but it is not available during live streams. Finally, Hunter said city staff would like to move to Municode for codification services, which would speed up the process of ordinance and code changes being posted to the city website.

As the floor was opened up for council questions and comments, Thompson said he felt fine sticking with YouTube as opposed to hosting the videos on the city website, but he supported switching to CivicClerk Pro Premium, Live Meeting Manager and Municode. Councilor Melisa Fonseca expressed her support for all of the proposed improvements including CivicMedia.

“If you look at the views that are on YouTube, there are a lot of views on a lot of the meetings, and I think this just incorporates it all in one. And that way, it’s just all accessible. It’s right there. It allows the public to see the agenda and watch the videos, and I think it just creates more transparency for the community,” she said.

A typical two-hour meeting, Fonseca added, averages around 16,000 words spoken, so the city would need to pay for the CivicMedia translation services on a per word basis at a rate of $0.012 per word — around $8,000 per year based on her estimate.

“So if we’re looking at about 40 percent of the population that speaks Spanish and reads Spanish and other languages, I think that $8,000 combined with all the taxpayer money that has been paid by those individuals, this is a miniscule thing for the community,” she said.

She then made a formal motion to proceed with all of the proposed improvements including the live translation services. After it was seconded, Councilor Greg Nichols asked for a comparison between YouTube and the CivicMedia package for video streaming.

Fonseca said the YouTube channel is not well organized, and Nichols asked if there was a cost for translation on YouTube — there is not. Councilor Jeff Schneider sought clarification on whether the meetings would still be syndicated on YouTube, and he was told they would not if the new plan was passed.

Schneider advocated for keeping meetings on YouTube going forward, and Hunter said there would be nothing preventing the city from doing that. He then proposed an amendment to dual stream the meetings on the city and website, and Nichols expressed concern about making “more work overall.”

Thompson then dug into the financial difference between the two, and Hunter said there was no cost to host videos on YouTube. The CivicMedia package, by contrast, would cost $6,000 up front and then per word for translation services.

“Based on the motion and the amendment, we’re talking about an annual fee of $16,950 that will come out of the general fund, am I correct?” he asked.

City Administrator Carol Webb said it would initially be paid out of the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) proceeds, but then it would move to the general fund after the first year. She added that the $16,950 annual figure would not include the translation fees.

A public commenter who declined to identify himself suggested a Zoom option allowing those who cannot physically attend to comment and ask questions. The first motion to amend regarding keeping the YouTube channel passed by a 4-3 vote with Schneider, Thompson, Nichols and Barry Kell in favor and Fonseca, Mark Mitchell and Mike Ladehoff opposed.

Nichols then motioned for another amendment to remove the CivicMedia package because he felt it was redundant with YouTube already available for free. As that came up for discussion, Schneider disagreed with his fellow councilor’s assessment.

“I don’t believe it’s truly redundant. I think it offers things that YouTube does not have. I really think we should keep both,” he said.

Kell said he hoped to keep the meetings as accessible as possible and felt the question was how much the city should spend to accommodate the 150 to 300 people who typically view their live streams.

“The services aren’t the same and it isn’t one for one, but at the same point, we know there’s a cost for the closed captioning. We know there’s a cost for the translation. I think we just need to decide ‘Is that cost worth the reach we get?’ Or maybe it expands the reach. I don’t know, but that’s kind of where my mind is,” he said.

Thompson then raised the question of whether the CivicMedia package would handle any language — as has been widely reported, at least 50 of them are known to be spoken in Marshalltown. Hunter said YouTube offers translation after the fact, and CivicMedia offers 67 languages. The city, however, would have to sign a contract and pay for each language, and Hunter added that under the proposed plan, they would only pay for live Spanish translation through closed captioning during each meeting.

Fonseca felt that the CivicMedia package would give Spanish speaking residents a chance to interact and keep up in real time, and in her view, the current system was already excluding all of the community’s non-English speaking residents.

“At least with Spanish, it includes one. One is something,” she said.

Mayor Joel Greer asked about the Burmese language as that population makes up Marshalltown’s second largest minority group after Latinos, and Hunter told him it was not offered through CivicMedia. Thompson then offered his thoughts on the motion before the council.

“I’m gonna make a difficult statement here. I don’t mean this to sound the way it’s gonna sound, but there’s no way around this. What we’re saying is we’re gonna put one minority ahead of all the other minorities. We’re gonna choose one segment of the population when everybody has the same option to learn English that came to this country, so I guess I’m saying I’m not willing to spend the taxpayers’ money to omit the people that live in my neighborhood over another segment of the population,” he said.

Fonseca quickly responded.

“I am very sorry you feel that way, Councilor Thompson, because if you look at the population you serve, there is already 33 percent or more that speak, read and write (in) Spanish. So we as a council need to realize that if we are representing our constituents, taxpaying constituents who have been paying taxes for decades here in Marshalltown,” she said. “This is a contract for one year, and we can check and see how it does. And it will provide that inclusivity and that transparency not only to everyone English speaking, but also to the Spanish speaking community that are here and haven’t been included in this way ever. So we need to realize that as a council and recognize.”

Mitchell echoed Thompson’s comments, contending that the money could be used more wisely than offering a benefit to a single minority group.

“Nothing against that, because I work with Hispanics and other nationalities where I work with my son, but I think we can use that $8,000 to benefit more people,” he said.

Ladehoff reminded his fellow councilors that their job was to represent the entire community, and he didn’t think offering Spanish translation would hurt any other groups.

“We all talk about being inclusive. We all talk about everybody counts, yay Marshalltown. And I want more Latino participation in our city government, more. They pay a lot in taxes. They’ve earned it. They own part of this government whether you like it or not, and someday, we won’t be talking about having to worry about Spanish because everybody will be speaking English,” Ladehoff said.

Citing his own family’s German roots and the T-R archives, the councilor recalled old stories wondering why that immigrant community hadn’t learned English quickly enough and acclimated to American society.

“We did, but we needed some help. So in my view, it would be beneath us not to try to connect the Latino community with us live, so that if they have a question live, like anyone else that pays taxes in this community, they can ask,” Ladehoff said. “I think it is worth going through a year of (this), and let’s see how many connections we get. Let’s see how many people start watching because we want more people to be watching and seeing what we do and being a part of this community.”

Nichols responded that YouTube already offers a host of language translations for free — albeit after the meetings have ended — but felt the live streams don’t allow residents to actively participate anyway.

“I’m seeing this as pretty redundant, but I certainly don’t want to exclude anybody. From the YouTube perspective of being able to do it in any language, I think, is a broader reach than the CivicMedia Plus with a language,” he said. “I’m not against languages. I think if we do reach out, we know we have a large Spanish (speaking) population. We also need to do a little more research on which other languages have a high level (of use).”

He listed French and Burmese as examples and encouraged all citizens to be part of local government. The amendment to strike the CivicMedia package passed 4-3 with Thompson, Nichols, Mitchell and Ladehoff in favor and Fonseca, Kell and Schneider opposed.

An amended motion to move forward with purchasing CivicClerk, Live Meeting Manager and Municode passed 5-2 with Thompson, Schneider, Nichols, Kell and Ladehoff in favor and Fonseca and Mitchell opposed. Because it was merely a discussion item, it will still need to come back as a formal resolution for council approval at a future meeting.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.