High-Tech Linkup to Add Far-Flung Look to Meetings of S. D. Supervisors

On a typical Tuesday at the County Administration Center, dozens--on occasion, hundreds--of people fill the Board of Supervisors’ chamber waiting to be heard on the myriad issues on that day’s agenda. When the item of interest to them comes up, they parade to a small lectern about 10 feet from the supervisors’ dais, make a brief pitch to the supervisors, then return to their seats to await the board’s vote.

But the nature of board meetings--as well as how the word “meeting” itself is defined and commonly thought of--could begin to change dramatically later this year when the county switches to a new $16-million telephone and telecommunications system hailed as being among the most advanced used by any local government in the nation.

After the new system becomes fully operational, the public, the supervisors and the county staff are unlikely to ever again be physically present in the same room at the same time--at least not in their entirety, as they are now.

The system, described by one top county official as “a little bit of Disneyland and a little bit of Hollywood,” will make it possible for residents--and the supervisors--to participate in the weekly meetings from North, South and East County locations linked to the downtown County Administration Center by a video hookup.

The result will be the legislative equivalent of “Nightline,” with supervisors and the public talking, not face to face, but through large television monitors, miles apart from each other.

A person addressing the board from one of the remote locations will see the supervisors on one monitor, while the supervisors will simultaneously see the speaker on a large screen in the board chamber. Documents, graphs or other written material that the speaker wants to show the board will be visible on a second screen. When a particular supervisor speaks, one of five small voice-activated cameras built into the supervisors’ desks will instantly flash his face on the screens at other sites.

“It will be an electronic town hall--you’re getting to that point with this technology,” Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Richard Jacobsen said. “It’s going to have a definite impact on the way we do a lot of things at the county. You’ll still be talking about and voting on and doing the same things, but you’ll be doing them differently and, hopefully, more efficiently.”

Videoconferences, though used regularly in private industry, are still a rarity in regional government operations. In researching the county’s proposed new program, the only comparable system that county officials could find nationwide is in Alaska, where video meetings have been used to overcome problems posed by inclement weather and topographical barriers that might otherwise prevent legislators and the public from participating in sessions.

Although county administrators contend that the futuristic system offers financial advantages, convenience and other pluses to the public and county alike, its proposed application to local government also has raised some intriguing McLuhanesque questions, as well as added to some existing concerns:

- For a quorum to legally exist, must a majority of the supervisors be physically present in the board chamber, or could several of them make video appearances and vote from remote locations?

- What happens if a board member wants to ask a confidential question to a county official speaking via the TV monitors from another location?

- Could technical difficulties interrupt a meeting or make board votes susceptible to legal challenge?

- Are an individual’s persuasive powers diminished--or enhanced--when he argues his case over a 36-inch monitor, rather than in person?

- Will the system’s advanced computer graphics capabilities make it even easier for developers and other well-heeled groups to outgun small community groups with razzle-dazzle presentations?

County officials’ short answer to most of those and other questions is: “We don’t know.”

“We’ve identified many questions and there probably are more we haven’t thought of yet,” Jacobsen said. “I don’t think any of them are insurmountable, but a lot of the answers won’t come until we see how the system works and how people use it.”

The videoconference capability is only one part--though clearly the most dazzling component--of the county’s new in-house phone network, which Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey estimates will save the county about $44 million over its first 10 years.

Purchased from Contel Business Networks Inc., the 10,300-line network, spread over a 4,300-square-mile area, will permit local calls to be placed from any of 46 county offices without zone or toll charges. Under the new system, which will replace the county’s existing Pacific Bell network, residents in most locations in the county also will be able to call major county offices without toll charges.

Scheduled to become operational on Sept. 30, the new phone system has emerged from a process marked by postponements and controversy, resulting in a final price tag that is about $3.4 million more than the $12.6-million figure cited when the Board of Supervisors approved the project in January, 1986.

Much of the price increase is attributable to a 25% expansion of the system beyond the original plan and site preparation delays stemming from disagreements between the county and Contel over who was responsible for preparing architectural drawings, rebidding certain parts of the project and the unanticipated need to relocate electrical and plumbing systems.

The county’s purchase of the Contel system last year came three years after scandal forced cancellation of an earlier contract with Telink Inc. Thirteen men, including two former county employees, were indicted in 1984 on charges of racketeering, bribery and fraud stemming from the alleged use of cocaine, prostitutes and kickbacks to influence the awarding of the Telink contract. Two men have pleaded guilty in the case, one man received a three-year sentence for perjury, and felony charges are still pending against 10 others.

Confident that those problems are finally behind them, county officials plan to initiate the new phone system with much fanfare, including a ceremonial “first call” this fall from actor and Contel advertising spokesman Charlton Heston to a celebrity, perhaps President Reagan.

Then attention will shift to the videoconference system, which county officials hope to have in place by late this year or early 1988, assuming that the supervisors give final approval to it on Tuesday.

The video equipment will cost $903,522--an expense that some supervisors have suggested perhaps should be delayed in light of the county’s tight budget. But county administrators have recommended that the supervisors proceed

immediately with the program, noting that the initial purchase costs will be offset by $120,000 in annual savings--money that the county now pays to the San Diego school board to televise supervisorial meetings.

Under the proposed system, videoconferences will be possible among six county sites: the County Administration Center, the downtown courthouse, the County Operations Center in Kearny Mesa, and regional centers in Vista, El Cajon and Chula Vista.

One of the system’s major advantages, county administrators argue, is that it will enable people to testify at board meetings without having to travel to the downtown county building. That not only will save people long commutes, they say, but also could alleviate the serious overcrowding problem in the county’s parking lots.

‘More Accessible’ Government

“Now there are people who spend more time driving here and back than at the meeting they’re coming to,” Jacobsen said. “This will make it easier for the public to interact with government and make county government more accessible.”

Supervisor John MacDonald, whose district includes most of North County, agrees.

“It would be a tremendous advantage to North County,” MacDonald said. “That long drive discourages some people from coming to meetings. I think it’s a way for more citizens to participate.”

But even some of MacDonald’s constituents, who face hour-plus drives to downtown, have serious doubts about the proposed system. Those concerns stem from one of the thorniest questions confronting the videoconference proposal: Are presentations made over a TV screen less or more effective than those delivered in person?

“You’re really tinkering with group dynamics,” said Jack Wireman, a Fallbrook activist who frequently attends board meetings. “There’s a big difference between coming across as a 2-D image on a screen and standing there in front of a group as a 3-D, flesh-and-blood person.

“It’s like trying to explain the difference between live theater and a movie. There’s a difference in the impact, the immediacy, the feel. . . If it was an issue important to me, I’d continue to put up with the inconvenience and drive down there. I think you’re clearly more effective in person.”

‘Paranoia About Unknown’

An opposite viewpoint comes from Supervisor Brian Bilbray.

“I sense that there’s a fair amount of paranoia about the unknown, a feeling that technology is going to be the enemy of mankind,” Bilbray said. “But if this high-tech stuff allows someone who doesn’t come to the meetings now because it’s too much of a hassle to participate, how can it be less effective?”

Teleconferences and videoconferences have been used in local courts on an experimental basis for non-evidentiary hearings and other pretrial matters. Robert Simmons, a University of San Diego law professor who supervised that project, acknowledges that the video-versus-personal appearance argument is a subjective one that produces differences of opinion. But the consensus of judges and lawyers, Simmons explained, is that “it doesn’t make a tinker’s damn.”

“It’s just naive to think that a judge or an elected official is going to be more influenced by body language than by substantive arguments,” Simmons said. “You can be just as persuasive over the phone or by video as in person.”

But even some of the strongest proponents of the county’s proposed system anticipate that, at best, it will initially receive a somewhat skeptical reception from the public.

“If it’s not that hot of an issue, my guess is that people would be willing to give this a try,” MacDonald said. “But on big issues like community plans, I think most people would still want to be there in person.”

Employees based at the county’s Kearny Mesa complex will be encouraged to make their presentations to the board via video, Jacobsen said. The supervisors themselves also are expected to periodically “attend” board meetings from one of the regional centers, though that possibility has raised some video-age legal questions.

Is It a Quorum?

State law does not specifically require that a majority of a legislative body be physically present at one location in order for a quorum to legally exist, “but that’s the common assumption,” County Counsel Lloyd Harmon said. Therefore, in order to avoid possible legal challenges, Harmon plans to advise the supervisors to seek approval of state legislation, patterned after an Alaskan law, authorizing quorums accomplished via videoconferences.

“Otherwise you’re just inviting challenges from the losing side on any issue,” Harmon said.

The supervisors themselves said that, at least initially, their participation in meetings from the regional centers likely would be more the exception than the rule.

“I can see times when maybe I’d be in Chula Vista, George (Bailey) would be in El Cajon, John (MacDonald) would be in Vista, and Susan (Golding) and Leon (Williams) would be downtown,” Bilbray said. “Or maybe if there was an important North County issue on the agenda, you’d want to be at Vista for that. But as a general practice, I’d prefer to be sitting next to all of my colleagues.”

Procedural questions also have arisen as county officials contemplate how to conduct meetings in which individuals who now sit shoulder-to-shoulder may be as much as 40 miles apart.

Jacobsen noted, for example, that there are often times during meetings when county officials want to ask each other or the supervisors confidential questions “without God and the world hearing.” While someone at the downtown county building obviously cannot lean over and whisper to someone in Vista, Jacobsen pointed out that the officials still could communicate privately over the telephone.

Speakers accustomed to passing out written material to be read by the supervisors during their presentations also may find testifying from a remote location to be a bit unwieldy. Under current plans, such documents would have to be held in front of a camera to be telecast or could be transmitted over a telecopier for distribution to the supervisors. Eventually, additional equipment could simplify that process and make it possible for slides or overhead projections shown at one of the regional centers to be seen simultaneously downtown, Jacobsen said.

Computer Graphics

The new system also offers advanced computer graphics capabilities that could produce more sophisticated public presentations to the board. However, concerns have been expressed that the technology might give an added edge to wealthy interest groups with the financial resources and expertise to take full advantage of it.

“If you walk in with a few Xeroxed pages and the developers have some snazzy graphics, where’s that leave you?” Fallbrook resident Wireman asked.

County officials, though, emphasize that a similar situation already exists, noting that large organizations typically produce more polished presentations and backup materials than small community groups. It is the merit of the arguments, not the gloss of the presentation that determines the outcome, the supervisors insist.

“Groups come in now with a lot of what I call pretty pictures, but we don’t always decide in favor of the pretty pictures,” MacDonald said. “We aren’t swayed by that.”

The county’s new telephone-video system has numerous applications beyond simply being used for the board meetings. The possibilities for expanding the use of video in courtrooms is being studied. And countless work-hours will be saved, Jacobsen said, by using the system to train county employees without having to bring them together in one central location.

Similarly, Chief Administrative Officer Hickey and other top officials could practice what Jacobsen termed “walk-around management” countywide without having to leave downtown. By the early 1990s, individual offices at the County Administration Center may be equipped with desk-top “video telecoms” that would permit two or more administrators to “see” each other without even having to walk down the hall.

Within five years, Jacobsen said he can envision a variety of other uses, including kiosks at regional centers where residents could obtain licenses and conduct other business with the county.

“What we’re getting is a backbone of a system that can be expanded fairly easily and inexpensively to make it even easier for the public to deal with government,” Jacobsen said. “Who knows what we’ll be doing with it in 10 years?”

USD law professor Simmons added: “The time has come to use this technology. There’s nothing Star Trekian about it. It’s been used for years by business. It’s time for government to recognize that it’s a new day.”

Bilbray summarized the issue in similar terms.

“It’s natural to be wary of anything new like this,” the supervisor said. “But I see it as more of an evolutionary thing than revolutionary. Over time, people get used to new things and these questions over whether they’re good or bad go away. Anyway, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that TV was an ineffective medium.”