Coming soon: Pittsburgh City Council, live or on demand, on the World Wide Web.

City officials took a step toward that goal yesterday, when the Computer Information Systems department asked companies to send in proposals to put the notoriously feisty nine-member body's gatherings online. The city's got $56,103 for any company willing to commit enough storage space for two years, times more than 100 meetings per year, times one to six hours per meeting of governmental drudgery, pugnacious exchanges, numbing wonkery and rare rhetorical transcendence.

"There's an old saying: The two things you never want to see in life are people making sausage and people making laws," said Councilman William Peduto, who has pushed for Internet broadcast of council meetings for years. That saying is no longer applicable, he argued. "It's important that people see their elected leaders making laws."

Council's meetings are broadcast on city cable. But they aren't available outside the city, and one must buy a custom-burned DVD to view an old meeting.

Members have long used the cameras in their chamber to send visual messages. For instance, in 2004, Councilman Jim Motznik wore his old sewer boots to council to show what he thought of a proposed budget. Last year Councilwoman Darlene Harris and Councilman Bruce Kraus opened meetings by parading pets in need of adoptive homes.

Council also plays to the camera when it wants to torture an official, as it did on Wednesday when members demanded leadership from a vacationing Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, or last year when they quizzed development officials for six hours about a since-nixed billboard permit.

So perhaps it's no surprise that Mr. Ravenstahl last year vetoed the allocation for webcasting council. Council overrode it, though, and City Information Systems Director Howard Stern is following though.

Mr. Stern said he doesn't want the city's computers burdened with the data needed to digitally depict hundreds of council meetings. He hopes a private firm that specializes in video storage will be able to hold two years worth of council gatherings on its servers in a searchable form reachable through the city's Web site.

He said there will be no need to add to the city's small team of videographers and technicians, and that its cameras are adequate.

If he has his way, taking council global will be just the beginning. "Eventually, we should be able to stream anything" to the Internet, he said. "Ultimately, we should be able to do police, fire and [Emergency Medical Services]" graduation, promotion and awards ceremonies, he said.

Firms' proposals are due by July 27.

Mr. Peduto plans to hold a special council meeting next month on using the Internet to promote democracy. He wants the city to pick a vendor that offers searchability so that if, for instance, someone wants to view all meetings at which Mr. Motznik discussed trees, they can do so with a few keywords and clicks.

Already, the technology is filtering into city politics. Mr. Peduto's political campaign is using Panopto, a company with technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University, to create "Bill TV," which will webcast important events like neighborhood group meetings in his council district.