The City of Morro Bay is taking bids now for upgrading its audio-visual equipment at the Vet’s Hall.
Public Works Director, Greg Kwolek, put out the notice in December, seeking “technical and cost proposals” from “firms, consultants or individuals for design and installation services.”
Kwolek said bidders “shall be responsible for preparing an effective, clear, and concise proposal,” and the bids are due at City Hall (City Clerk’s Office) before 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22.
According to the City’s posted schedule, the bids are due Jan. 22; possible oral interviews would happen Jan. 27; with awarding of a contract by the city council set for Feb. 12.
If all that goes smoothly, the job should start March 3 and be completed in 60 days (July 31).
As a contract for professional services, the City didn’t issue an engineer’s estimate on the cost, nor is it seeking the lowest bid. Instead, the City will judge bids based on several criteria like experience and project team, among other things.
However, when the item was brought to the City Council last October for authorization of bidding, the staff report lists $500,000 as the available budget for the project.
The Vet’s Hall is where Morro Bay’s public access television is based. It was the first of the City’s buildings to be equipped with sound and video equipment, plus editing and broadcasting gear. This was back in the mid-1990s, when Steve Matthew and Ray McKelligott brought the provisions of the City’s cable TV contract to light and got the City and Charter Cable to start broadcasting City public meetings on cable TV. That first meeting, Matthew used a video tape recorder on a tripod to film. Then-Mayor Bill Yates cleared the way and set down the first of the rules for what was then, a brand-new thing.
First rule was gavel-to-gavel coverage, focused on the speakers at the podium and the Council and staff seated at the dais and on either flank at the head of the room.
As this all predated the advent of the Internet, the video feed to Charter had to be inserted at a Charter facility at the top of Radcliff Street, which then put the meetings on its “PEG Access” Channel 20 (PEG is Public, Education and Government).
Over the years, the broadcasts grew as AGP refined the equipment, basically on a shoestring budget, thus the mismatched nature of the studio gear.
Now, that contract, still with AGP, annually covers some 77 so-called “Brown Act” meetings of advisory boards, the Planning Commission, and City Council.
The effectiveness of having the meetings broadcast live was immediate as council members encountered a better-informed constituency, literally, everywhere they went.
And while the system still broadcasts the meetings, it’s old and doesn’t always work right.
“Audio and visual (AV) production at the Vet’s Hall,” reads the report from Oct. 8, “is achieved in a back room of the building through a system of equipment that has been patched together over the last 30 years.
“Currently, audio is captured using nine to 15 microphones and video is captured from three pan-tilt-zoom cameras (PTZ) as well as one static camera.”
It works like a TV studio, sort of. “AV is brought to the control room where audio is mixed manually and cameras are adjusted and toggled manually to create an AV feed. Both audio and video are then fed to one convenience monitor for view by the City Council at the Vet’s Hall; two monitors for view by members of the public in attendance at the Vet’s Hall; a Zoom feed for public participation; a Channel 20 [Charter Cable] feed, and a direct feed to a hard drive.
“The video graphics and Zoom meeting are also managed by AGP staff. After every meeting, AGP copies the AV data from the hard drive to a DVD disc, the contents of which are then uploaded to the City’s YouTube account for archiving and public accessibility.”
The system doesn’t always work as it should, mostly because of the mismatched components.
“The current system,” Kwolek’s report said, “is vulnerable to failures because the various components of the system do not match in type and/or era and that forces the video feed through conversions between digital and analog and back. Further, multiple aspects of the meeting setup are done manually for every meeting, leaving room for error. In the past three years, the system has experienced several failures at public meetings, and in some cases, public meetings were delayed or continued to future dates due to AV issues.”
At this point, Kwolek said it would be better to build a whole new system. “Due to the age of the existing AV system, individual components cannot be replaced piecemeal, and a complete overhaul of the AV system architecture is required.”
It’s just one of the problems the Vet’s Hall is experiencing.
“The Vet’s Hall itself is aging and in need of some building systems, safety, security, and accessibility upgrades,” Kwolek said. “For example, the furnace, when it is running, is loud and can overpower the voices of speakers during public meetings. Also, the stage on which the dais sits is not ADA accessible, and the building lacks adequate escape routes during emergencies. Additionally, multiple keys have been given to community groups who use the Vet’s Hall for meetings and activities, and this has created a security risk for the Vet’s Hall.
“Finally, the building is not well designed to accommodate different uses, which requires full manual set up and breakdown of meetings that add to the operating cost of each meeting.”
As part of the upgrade, Kwolek is recommending the AV system be as automated as possible, wires and jacks be installed in the floor to hide wires, and more.
Last August, the City hired Bill Gaines Audio to “assist with the Vet’s Hall AV system evaluation and analysis.”
And the City is expected to add one more access point for the public to tune in to its business.
“Currently,” Kwolek said, “the City broadcasts all public meetings on SloSpan [AGP’s site], [Charter Cable] Channel 20, and Zoom. Once implemented, the City’s eScribe system will also make live broadcast available on the City’s website. Compared to the rest of the cities in San Luis Obispo County, Morro Bay is on the high end of number and broadcasts available.”