Over the years, the public’s access to the meetings of the Jefferson PUD’s Board of Commissioners (BOC) has greatly improved.

Before January, 2015 people had to attend meetings of the BOC in person to find out what the PUD was doing with the public’s money and how they were managing the essential public services of electricity and water. Then, the BOC began making audio recordings of their meetings.

Initially, only simple mp3 audio recordings of BOC meetings were made and posted on the PUD website (JeffPUD.org); agendas and minutes were online but the meeting materials, for the most part, were not. But now, thanks to the efforts of the PUD’s Citizen Advisory Board, each audio meeting is accompanied by a “timestamped” agenda that allows the listener to quickly skip to the part of the recording that addresses each specific item on the agenda.

Agendas and meeting materials are now almost 100% online (a few things are still handed out during the meetings) and are available three days before each meeting. Meeting minutes are online, are now more compact, and take less time to create because the audio recordings can be used when more detail is needed about the BOC’s discussion regarding a particular topic.

Meetings of the CAB are likewise recorded and posted on the PUD’s website, complete with time stamped agendas, meeting materials, and minutes.

Thank you, PUD staff, CAB, and BOC, for making public information much more accessible to the public.

Tom Thiersch
Jefferson County
PUD customer-owner