City of Walker
An interview with Sarah Bydalek, City Clerk
First organized as Walker Township in 1837, Walker, Michigan (www.walker.city), was organized as a city in 1962 and is now home to an estimated 25,000 people.
The northwestern suburb of Grand Rapids is governed by a commission of seven elected officials, the mayor and six commissioners, and a hired city manager. Walker’s current City Hall was built in 1964.
The Challenge
Until recently, the Commission Chamber at City Hall suffered from an outdated sound system, some of it as old as the building, making it difficult to hear and record meetings. Some of the issues were resolved with the installation of a new sound system in the ceiling—but not all. “We still had people who couldn’t hear in the back of the room,” recalls Walker City Clerk Sarah Bydalek. “We had ceiling mics that were on all the time so they picked up a lot of background noise, and we couldn’t turn them up high enough."
How Televic supported the City of Walker
Always interested in new technology—she is a leader in the movement to enhance technology in city government—Bydalek discovered the Televic D-Cerno plug-and-play digital discussion system at an International Institute of Municipal Clerks conference around the time that Walker was revamping its Commission Chamber audio system. “When I found the Televic discussion microphone system, I thought, we need to add this." However, Bydalek initially wasn’t sure whether the Televic system would integrate well with their new sound system. “I contacted Televic, and they came out to demo their microphone system, which was very helpful. They showed us the difference between our old microphones and their microphones.”
The D-Cerno system at the City of Walker
Televic’s D-Cerno system is a complete solution in which up to 50 D-Cerno microphones connect to a central unit that handles audio routing and provides built-in audio recording on a USB flash drive for transcription of minutes and archiving. “We now have 12 microphones total: One at the podium, one at the computer where we set up the agenda, and 10 on the dais,” details Bydalek.
