Brookfield’s village board meetings are about to get an upgrade.
Brookfield trustees have approved a contract worth $44,750 with Pentegra Systems, a Naperville-based technology solutions company, to replace audio and video equipment in Brookfield Village Hall’s board chamber.
The contract includes the replacement of the microphones used by trustees, commissioners and village staff at village board and commission meetings.
“Staff microphones are over 15 years old, and they can often either provide inconsistent quality or simply go out and need to be repaired,” Assistant Village Manager Stevie Ferrari said at the board’s meeting Monday.
Later, during the committee of the whole meeting, the microphone used by public commenters started ringing out with a seemingly unprompted echo, a moment Village President Michael Garvey said underscored Brookfield’s need to replace the board room sound system.
The project also includes the installation of four, 75-inch televisions in the board room that will replace the current projection system. Now, there is one projector each on the left and right walls of the room that allows trustees and the audience to see presentations, though not always with the best view. Each projector will be replaced by two TVs, one facing the village board’s dais and the other facing the audience so everyone in the room can see clearly.
Aside from those big-ticket items, Ferrari said the upgrade will allow Brookfield to stream more meetings online and require less time and effort from staff.
“Our current video-streaming system requires staff to put a man behind the curtain, if you will. [Management Analyst] Noah [Rife] is in the next room doing the filming connection for the village board and committee of the whole,” she said.
“‘Room’ is very generous. He’s in a closet,” Garvey interjected, inspiring laughter from other members of the board.
“This project will allow reconfiguring that so that staff can manage and control the filming from inside of the board room itself, and that would allow staff liaisons to additional commissions to provide filming of those commission meetings,” Ferrari added. “Right now, they are not [recorded], and that’s because there’s a constraint because of the configuration.”
She told trustees Brookfield had received three bids for the replacement after issuing a request for proposals with a price cap of $60,000. For the base work of replacing the mics, installing the TVs and moving the streaming setup, Pentegra came in with the lowest bid by nearly $7,000.
Ferrari said that the bidders were welcome to submit additional bids for a potential dais voting system at trustees’ seats that would be integrated into Brookfield agenda management system. Pentegra came in with the highest additional bid of $42,700, meaning Brookfield would owe $87,450 in total, but even with lower additional bids, the other two companies came in around or above the same total cost. Village staff ultimately decided not to pursue the dais voting system, Ferrari said.
She said the project will be done by the end of the year, although the village will have to wait for the equipment to be delivered. She added that the upgrades cannot be installed until early voting for the 2024 election finishes, as the board room at Brookfield Village Hall will be an early voting location. Once work does start, though, it should take about two weeks, she said.
Garvey said he was excited by the upgrade allowing for a better use of staff time now that no one will have to stay in the “back closet” to monitor the video connection.
“But I think the new screens are what I’m most excited about, because right now we have these display screens, and they’re set up so both the board and the audience can see them, but it’s not ideal for either,” he said. “As we struggle to look sideways, and you struggle to look sideways, we’ll actually be able to have panels that will face you and panels that will face us, so you can see some of the audio-visual presentations that we do.”
