FULLERTON : City Votes to Begin Televising Meetings

After months of debate on whether to broadcast City Council meetings, council members have embraced lights, camera, action.

Beginning with the council’s Aug. 2 meeting, residents will be able to watch their council members in session.

The meetings will be aired live on Comcast, Channel 53, the city’s government channel that usually carries public service announcements, at a cost of about $30,000.

Council members voted 4 to 1 last week to televise their meetings.

Councilman Don Bankhead cast the dissenting vote, saying he would rather use the money to buy books for the library.

Airing the council meetings live saves the city the expense of taping them and making copies available for the public, city officials said.

They said that for years residents have been asking to see their council on television.

Mayor A.B. (Buck) Catlin said he objects to spending money on televising council meetings in light of the current fiscal restraints on the city, which have shrunk the library’s book-buying budget by about $70,000 over the past five years.

But Catlin said he has received numerous phone calls and letters from residents urging him to support televising the council meetings.

“The general rhetoric of the public seems to say, ‘We want to see televised council meetings,’ ” Catlin said. “But I think that’s not as effective a way to use the money for public education as a library is.”

Councilman Chris Norby, who has proposed televising council meetings every year since the mid-1980s, disagreed.

“I’m glad that we’re doing it,” Norby said. “I think had we done it earlier, some of the divisiveness of the last couple of years might have been avoided. But better late than never.”