Image by Sarah Owens
The Mountain Brook City Council transitioned to YouTube for streaming its meetings in 2025, replacing Zoom due to reliability issues.
The Mountain Brook City Council transitioned to YouTube for streaming its meetings in 2025, replacing Zoom due to reliability issues.
“The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for increased online accessibility, leading the city to offer streaming of council sessions as a courtesy to residents,” City Clerk Heather Richards said. “In response, the city initially adopted Zoom as a platform for broadcasting meetings. However, over time, Zoom proved to be increasingly unreliable, necessitating a transition to YouTube for streaming. This change was made to ensure a more stable and seamless viewing experience.”
The city also installed new cameras in the council chambers and the conference room where pre-meetings are held. The new cameras provide higher-quality visuals, and the pre-meeting room camera angle was adjusted to focus on the council instead of the audience, Richards said.
Meeting videos will remain on the city’s YouTube page until the following morning before removal. In contrast, Homewood and Vestavia Hills leave their meeting videos online indefinitely, and Hoover leaves its videos online for at least eight years. Mountain Brook officials hope the short-term availability will encourage more in-person attendance.
“YouTube videos are intended to allow individuals to attend virtually in real time as a matter of convenience only,” Richards said. “In-person attendance at public meetings is highly encouraged to facilitate public participation and engagement with elected officials. The videos do not represent the official record of the public meetings.”
Meetings will be livestreamed on the city's YouTube channel, @cityofmountainbrook. To watch live, search the handle, select the city’s logo and click “Live.”
