How many Warren City Council members does it take to set up a livestream broadcast of the entity’s regular meetings?

Whatever that number is, we still — apparently — are not there yet.

Last week, council again discussed why Warren hasn’t joined the 21st century and set up streaming of meetings like other comparable municipalities. Even much smaller cities — like Cortland — have such systems in place.

Youngstown, the largest city in Mahoning County, offers its residents a tape-delayed broadcast, but at least it’s something.

If this situation seems embarrassing to you, just know that you’re not alone. That was the exact word council member Michael O’Brien, D-at Large, used last week during a meeting in which council again batted around the idea of streaming. The last time it happened in Warren was a generation ago, when TCI was broadcasting meetings in the late 1990s or early 2000s. That endeavor ended after council at the time objected to rate increases.

O’Brien commented that it was “embarrassing” that Warren does not stream its council meetings, but Cortland — a city one-fifth its size — does.

We agree with O’Brien and fellow council members who want to change that. It’s long overdue and needs to happen soon.

“We’ve been talking about it and talking about it, whatever it takes,” O’Brien said.

The talking continued last week, when council member Helen Rucker, D-at Large, acting pro-tem of the meeting, asked why there has been no installation of equipment and start of streaming despite previously available funds and quotes from service providers.

“It seems as though this is not being done unless council orders it to be done,” Rucker said.

The councilwoman proposed that Council President John Brown appoint a three-person committee to finalize the installation of equipment and set a firm timeline.

In other words, to start some movement on the project so Warren can begin to catch up with other cities that have been livestreaming meetings for years.

Don’t worry, though. A committee might soon be on the case, so city residents might be able to watch meetings just before the end of the world.

A bit dramatic? Probably. But the simple fact is that Warren is behind the times for no other reason than there has not been the collective will to allow all the city’s residents who care to better monitor what’s happening here and what their representatives are doing on their behalf.

Why weren’t some of the city’s American Rescue Plan funds earmarked for the upfront costs of livestreaming equipment? That would have made too much sense. Why didn’t anyone suggest that council members explore how to pay for that equipment and the accompanying streaming costs instead of, say, voting themselves an 89% raise?

To be fair, the so-called “OWL” streaming units — which provide 360-degree camera rotation — are not cheap. Council member Tina Milner, D-2nd Ward, said those units cost about $3,000 each, per an estimate from a company that does work for Trumbull County.

It’s an investment, to be sure, but one that is sorely needed in a city that should have long been providing the same transparency that other municipalities found the time, money and will to offer its residents.