Santa Ana council’s audience limited

In an age when new technology has provided access to increasing amounts of information, the Santa Ana City Council has decided that certain things are not fit for viewing -- some of its own meetings

Mayor Miguel Pulido will allow only one of the two monthly meetings to be broadcast, making Santa Ana the largest city in the state that doesn’t televise all its meetings.

At the Dec. 3 meeting, no council member would second a motion requiring that all meetings be televised on the public access channel and be available on the city’s website for at least five years.

“You have to ask why every other council is doing this and we aren’t,” said Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who offered the motion. “There’s a perception that this council wants to run closed-door meetings.”

Pulido said at the meeting that he preferred to limit viewing because cameras made some council members nervous.

“The best job in many cases involves learning off-camera in an informal setting,” Pulido said.

Arguing that elected officials can’t speak in public doesn’t make sense, said Tracy Westen, chief executive of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles and chairman of the Municipal Access Policy Board, which oversees the Los Angeles city government channel. “These are people who want to be in the public domain.”

Bob Stern, president of the center, said, “The trend is for more openness, not for shutting down public access. This is really surprising to me.”

The decision on televised meetings comes as the council has discouraged city commissioners from posting their opinions on blogs and has unseated a commissioner critical of the city government.

All meetings are streamed live on the city’s website but are not archived, so the only way to view one belatedly is to check out a DVD at one of Santa Ana’s downtown or Newhope libraries or to pay $5 for a copy .

This is not the first time Santa Ana has limited access to its council meetings. All meetings were shown on cable beginning in 1981, and that continued for 20 years, when they were cut back to one per month. The city again televised all meetings from February 2007 through September, until Pulido decided one was enough.

“In my experience, I haven’t heard of a city that has cut back on their meeting coverage,” said Robin Gee, a board member of the California and Nevada chapter of the National Assn. of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.

Covering meetings is “considered a standard practice because of public perception. It asks why are you choosing some meetings and not others.”

In addition, one meeting a month since October has been held away from City Council chambers, sometimes in the same building but in a different room with no microphones.

The meetings are held in different places “to confuse people, and there’s no signage,” Martinez said.

“I’ve asked why these meetings aren’t in the council chambers. The mayor said it wasn’t an informal setting and we can’t work closely with staff.”

Councilman David Benavides said the untelevised sessions are often discussions of issues without votes. “There is some value to the argument that off-camera . . . allows for a workshop setting that might allow for more relaxed discussion. I don’t think they should be off-camera all the time, though.”

Martinez and Benavides were the only council members who returned calls seeking comment.

Art Pedroza, who runs orangejuiceblog.com, which is critical of the city government, said the mayor and his allies were avoiding televised meetings because they did not like an increasing number of residents asking difficult questions before a large audience.

“They are making it difficult for the average resident to keep track of where the council is so less people can find the meetings,” he said.

Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez said at the Dec. 3 meeting that despite two years of study by the council’s technology committee, the city had not been able to figure out how to place meetings on the Web for on-demand viewing.

Curt Pringle, mayor of neighboring Anaheim, said his city began offering streaming video last year.

“We believe a lot of people might not be subscribers to cable TV,” he said. “We want to make sure, whoever those people may be, they have access to their government.”

Other cities and Orange County have taken steps to provide more access to government meetings. The county put in a more extensive online service last summer costing about $400,000 a year. In Yorba Linda, the City Council recently began Web streaming. The cost was $68,000 for the software plus a $2,800 monthly service fee, said city spokesman Michael Maxfield.

“It’s part of a city initiative to use technology to provide access to all parts of government,” said Maxfield.

jennifer.delson@latimes.com