Palmetto Bay is ready for its close-up.

Palmetto Bay hopes to broadcast its council meetings live, and rerun them twice daily, on Comcast’s Channel 77. For residents who don’t subscribe to the cable company, the village began live-streaming video of its meetings in October on its website, www.palmettobay-fl.gov, along with on-demand videos which are available in the video library link on the village home page.

Currently, Ch. 77 airs slideshows of last year’s Palmetto Bay picnic and sponsor blurbs. But council meetings alone can’t expect to compete with flashier programming like FX’s water-cooler hit, American Horror Story. To lure and keep people on its channel, the local city government realizes it needs to offer programming with professional graphics, lead-ins, voice-overs and appealing, as well as informative, content.

At its Monday night village council meeting, Palmetto Bay spokesman Bill Kress presented a case to improve programming and to announce that the village will seek a management company to oversee its operations on Ch. 77 which, until recently, broadcast Coral Gables’ council meetings into nearby Palmetto Bay homes.

In a world that has given us McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it”, the South Miami-Dade village might soon welcome its residents with “Come home to the Bay!” or “Nobody knows Palmetto Bay like 77 the Bay” — to possible slogans being considered.

Kress has already spoken with web and television branding company asapbrand to discuss brand messaging options, programming and possible call letters that would best describe the channels content: WBAY, PBTV, WPRK or TV77, for instance, as well as an identifying logo. The firm has done branding and other work for for the cities of Coral Gables, Palm Beach County, as well as retail and restaurants like Dadeland and Aventura malls, hotels and condos, and schools, including Gulliver and Westminster Christian.

“We meet the demand as presented,” said Kress, noting the mayor and council’s goals to have transparent government as well promote public participation and showcase the village’s parks, schools and other amenities.

The first phase comes with an estimated cost of $25,000, which would include initial branding, he said.

A full roll-out, with programming development, voice-talent secured for reusable on-air introductions of regular programming, and video editing equipment could push that cost to $100,000 a year. The village would seek to offset the cost by securing sponsors who would be name-checked on air – similar to what is seen on PBS stations.

“Other cities have good quality access stations that represent their communities well,” Kress said, citing Miami-Dade and Miami as examples he has studied. “We want to provide a product that meets the state requirements and lives up to Palmetto Bay standards.”

The state requires 10 hours of programming on public access channels. Palmetto Bay pledges to run 12 hours, which would include council meetings, village archive images and original programming such as footage from school events, holiday activities such as last Saturday’s Holiday by the Bay, and events around the village to serve its 24,000 residents.

Vice Mayor Brian Pariser expressed concern over the cost and urged Kress and Village Manager Ron Williams to further research how much other municipalities spend on programming. Key Biscayne, Williams said, employs a couple of full-time staffers for its on-air operations. Palmetto Bay doesn’t plan on hiring new personnel.

In other village business, the council voted unanimously to support Miami-Dade County’s resolution urging the state legislature to enact stronger penalties for local election fraud regarding absentee ballots. County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa sponsored a resolution in November that would implore legislation to make it a third-degree felony to retrieve or return more than one absentee ballot from a non-relative and to make it a third degree felony to violate any local election law.

“We support positive and honest campaigning in Palmetto Bay,” said Mayor Shelley Stanczyk. “This is about campaign workers getting over-involved.”