Council Rings Down Curtain on ‘Gong Show’ at Meetings

Burbank, a national center of television production, is yanking the plug on a show that has everything drama critics look for--laughter, sorrow, scathing dialogue, social problems and conflict.

Far too much conflict, as far as the City Council is concerned.

Frustrated by years of enduring long harangues by the same small group of gadflies, and thwarted in its attempt to limit their speeches, the council voted Tuesday to deprive them of half their cable television exposure.

The cameras henceforth will be turned off during the second session of “oral communications,” as the period when citizens may address the council is called.

“It’s like ‘The Gong Show,’ ” Mayor Robert R. Bowne said before casting his vote on the matter at the council’s regular meeting Tuesday night. “I think too often people are confusing free speech with the manner in which a public meeting is to be conducted.”

Bowne noted that City Council meetings are regularly disrupted by name-calling, clapping and booing, and that many times he is forced to have people removed from the meetings because of outlandish behavior. Bowne said that he believes restricting televised coverage of the meetings might help solve the problem.

Councilman Thomas Flavin echoed Bowne’s comments.

“We have a small group of vocal individuals who, under the guise of the First Amendment, consistently indulge in character assassination, personal innuendo and deliberate misrepresentation of the facts,” Flavin said. “The vast majority of people, in my judgment, are fed up with it and want something done about it. While legally we may be required to provide an opportunity for these people to indulge themselves, we are not required to put it out over the cable system.”

This is the same City Council that attempted to pressure the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority into holding night meetings by threatening to broadcast the authority’s proceedings on the local cable TV channel. The council voted in June to authorize the broadcast of authority meetings, with or without the cooperation of the authority.

The city backed off after the authority agreed to hold at least one night meeting each quarter.

Ironically, members of the authority were reluctant to televise their meetings because they feared it would encourage disruptions by gadflies--several of them the same speakers who regularly address Burbank City Council meetings.

Despite protests from about 20 people in the audience Tuesday, the council voted 3 to 2 not to televise the second portion of oral communications. During this comment period, taken at the end of each meeting, speakers are allowed to address the council on topics that are not on the agenda.

Council members Mary Lou Howard and Tim Murphy voted against the measure, saying that the public has a right to be heard and that limiting television coverage of the proceedings would only make things worse.

“I don’t think people come up here because we’re on television,” Howard said. “They are here because they are really afraid of what is going on in their neighborhoods. I don’t believe blacking out the television is going to solve the problem. I think you’re going to have more people upset and more people coming in here.”

Last week, the City Council agreed to drop a proposal to restrict public comments on non-agenda items to once a month after the Acting City Atty. Juli Scott advised the panel that such an action would not be in compliance with the Brown Act, the state open meetings law.

Some members of the audience Tuesday night suggested that members of the City Council should limit speaking time for themselves, not the public.

“If you want to control your time, so be it. But do not try to control our rights,” said S. Michael Stavropoulos, a neurosurgeon who regularly speaks at meetings and has at times addressed the mayor as “Comrade Bowne.”