By ROY WOOD

Oliver council is giving Eastlink until December 31 to fulfill its obligation under its Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) mandate to broadcast local council meeting.

Mayor Ron Hovanes conceded the town doesn’t really have tools to force the cable provider to provide coverage, “But we’ll try to put some pressure on them and see what happens.”

It has been 11 months since live broadcasts on the local cable channel was discontinued when the producer retired.

Occasional requests to Eastlink have proved futile, other than the recent installation of a video camera in the council chamber.

Corporate officer Diane Vaykovich has, for the past three meetings, been experimenting with recording them. She said she called Eastlink recently to seek feedback on whether the system worked well.

“It sounded like they were surprised that I was looking for feedback,” she said.

Councillor Larry Schwartzenberger said, “We’ve been stumbling around on the is for nearly a full year. Its ridiculous.”

Council agreed to send a letter to Eastlink asking it to fulfill its CRTC mandate by broadcasting the regular and special council meetings and to implement the practice by December 31. The letter will be copied to the CRTC.