Chicopee begins optical character recognition of meeting materials
Screenshot displaying the metadata for two version of a Jan. 7 city council meeting agenda. Both were downloaded from chicopeema.gov/agendacenter. The top file contains text, while the bottom one does not. Chicopee begins optical character recognition of meeting materials By Jonathan Gerhardson on January 9, 2024. The Chicopee City Council will discuss an open meeting law complaint filed by Jonathan Gerhardson (author of this blog), at a meeting of its Rules Committee on Jan. 16. The complaint alleges that meeting agendas and minutes were not made ADA compliant and that the Zoom link for council meetings was not clickable. The Massachusetts Open Meeting Law requires cities and towns to make certain meeting materials, such as agendas and minutes, publicly available. When a municipality posts these materials to its website, it is required to do so in a way that complies with state and local laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. In April, 2024 the Unite...
