It has taken effort and dogged determination to attend public meetings of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, the operator of seven Twin Cities airports, including Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

MAC meetings, held at MSP, require parking in the short-term lot, retaining your ticket (to be validated for free at the meeting), showing a government-issued photo ID at the information booth on Level T, where you're issued a pass, then using the employee security checkpoint to get to the Airport Conference Center on the mezzanine level — that part is easy to remember because it's above the Chili's Too restaurant.

Got that?

Just retrieving the parking stub from the depths of my purse, already littered with long-expired coupons and old paychecks, is enough to send me into a tizzy.

"It is a little more involved than most public meetings," said Patrick Hogan, MAC spokesman. Most meeting attendees do business with the MAC or have airport connections, so they know the drill. But for regular citizens, "it can be inconvenient," he said.

The accessibility issue came to a head during summer 2013, when angry Edina-area residents attended a MAC meeting about proposed changes in flight patterns that could bring increased airplane noise to their community. Many were surprised by what was involved to attend the public meeting.

Since October, the MAC has been streaming its meetings live and by video on demand on its website, www.metroairports.org.

Hogan said the live stream attracts about 70 people per meeting. "It's not huge, but it's a good feature to have," he said.

The video recordings are segmented, so viewers can watch an entire meeting or select the items of interest to them. In addition, supporting documents are uploaded to the same area of the website so viewers can review them while keeping tabs on the meeting.

Of course, anyone who wants to address the commission live must still go through the steps to get to the meetings.

Janet Moore • 612-673-7752