Cable Channel Program Targets Latino Parents : TV: A mother’s effort to get families involved in neighborhood schools has led to a half-hour bilingual show that addresses Costa Mesa issues.

As president of a multicultural parent group at Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach, Debbie Boyer found it nearly impossible to drum up participation among the parents of many Latino students.

The group spent money to translate flyers into Spanish to inform people when meetings and activities were scheduled, only to discover that some students didn’t take the flyers home and some parents were unable to read them.

“We felt we were butting our heads against the wall trying to communicate,” said Boyer, the mother of an eighth-grade student at Newport Harbor High School. “I spend a lot of time in the community, and nobody knew that the multicultural (group) existed . . . so I was going over in my mind how to reach a broader base.”

So Boyer called Copley Colony cable television of Costa Mesa several weeks ago and asked for a time slot on public access Channel 61 for a show that would speak to Latinos. Ensign Intermediate School, part of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, draws about half its students from Costa Mesa and half from Newport Beach.

The result of Boyer’s effort became “Charlas de la Comunidad” or “Community Dialogue,” a half-hour program which deals with community issues in both Spanish and English. It aired for the first time last week.

Just as many Latino viewers are settling down for dinner, the show will examine local issues including crime, adult education, schools and parenting skills.

Boyer recruited Oscar Santoyo, director of the local Save Our Youth Community Center, to host the bilingual show. “Charlas de la Comunidad” will air for the second time Tuesday.

“There is a lot of positive feedback in the community already,” said Santoyo. “People are hearing about it and saying that it is a long time coming. . . . The Latino community needs some sort of a voice to be heard.”

John Hurd, who oversees the public access channel at Copley Colony, which serves 23,000 subscribers in Costa Mesa, set aside one of the best time slots for “Charlas de la Comunidad” before the first show was even completed.

“This is the perfect kind of programming to hit issues in the community,” Hurd said.

The city of Costa Mesa, according to the 1990 census, has a population of 96,000, about 19,200 of whom are Latino. More than 9,000 Latinos say they speak Spanish as their primary language. “Charlas de la Comunidad” hopes to reach those people.

The first two shows featured a talk-show format. At the taping of the second show last week in the studio at the Copley Colony cable building, three guests sat in chairs on either side of Santoyo. There are no TelePrompTers, no real rehearsals, and no dress code for guests.

The guests, residents Yolanda Garcia, Carmen Barrios and Roy Alvarado, a local gang counselor in the schools, wore sweaters and button-down shirts.

The show, which will air Tuesday and again Thursday, is devoted to Garcia’s and Barrios’ Madres Costa Mesa, a gang-prevention effort led by Latino mothers who will patrol schoolyards and bus stops to ensure that their children make it to school safely and steer clear of gangs. Throughout the 30-minute discussion, panelists liberally mixed Spanish and English, sometimes starting a sentence in one language and ending in another. No subtitles are used.

“I want it to be very relaxed,” said Santoyo, who brings 10 years of radio experience to the role as host. In addition to work in college radio, Santoyo hosted a radio program in Milwaukee.

Boyer, who is in the show’s credits as the producer, operated one of the cameras. Jorge Barrios, an ex-gang member and Carmen Barrios’ son, manned the other.

The collaborators have enough ideas to fill the airwaves with segments on Latino leaders in Costa Mesa, the Newport-Mesa school district, parenting skills and gangs and crime. As the community becomes more familiar with the show, Santoyo said, producers will take TV cameras out onto the streets to highlight various events and issues.

After taping last week, Santoyo said the show developed practically overnight.

“When (Boyer) called to ask me to host the show, I thought she meant sometime a long ways off. I didn’t know she meant the next week,” he said.

“I want to focus on educational issues,” Santoyo added. “I think this is an excellent way to reach the Latino community.”

Jorge Barrios said he got the chance to be a volunteer cameraman through the Save Our Youth community center, where Santoyo is director. He was impressed enough with the experience that he will encourage his friends to also try their hands at television.

“I think (the show) is going to work out,” he said, adding that he would also like to be in front of the camera someday.

Tony Valenzuela, director of the school district’s migrant education program and a guest on the show’s pilot episode, said he knows that people are watching.

“There was so much interest in knowing more about it,” Valenzuela said of the students he works with at Estancia High School in Costa Mesa. He predicted the show would catch on by word of mouth.

“It is an important way to . . . inform (parents) of so many different things,” he said.

For her part, Boyer intends to make the success of “Charlas de la Comunidad” a self-fulfilling prophecy. She persuaded the cable company into donating a television to the Save Our Youth community center so that people without cable hookups can watch. She also has contacted owners of apartment complexes to urge them to pass word to tenants to watch the show.

Only two shows into this new endeavor, participants see it having an early impact on Costa Mesa.

“It is scary sometimes,” said Santoyo. “The seed is planted and the tree is growing and already branching out.”

Times Correspondent Willson Cummer contributed to this report.