Supervisors Aim to Add Life to Their Meetings

When the Board of Supervisors began holding monthly night meetings three years ago, the hope was that the empty seats in the room would be filled with residents interested in the workings of Orange County government, one that had just been tarnished by the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

But it turns out that an evening of zoning hearings and debates about public finance isn’t much of a draw.

Many nights, the audience at the Hall of Administration is made up almost exclusively of county officials and consultants who are required to be there.

But then what would you rather watch, Jan Mittermeier and William G. Steiner or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “NYPD Blue”?

Hoping to lure a larger audience, the board next week will consider moving the start time up one hour, to 6 p.m. This, backers hope, will allow people to come straight from work and cut down on those occasional meetings that drag on close to midnight.

“The way it is now, it could be 10 or 11 o’clock before we get to the item people want to hear,” said Darlene Bloom, the clerk of the board. “This would push things up.”

Not everyone is convinced that an earlier start will make much of a difference, and some community activists say the county can do more to improve public participation in government by broadcasting sessions on cable television.

At least that way you can click to ESPN or HBO when things gets boring.

The night meetings became a source of dispute soon after they began in 1995. The board decided to hold one night meeting each month in response to complaints from residents who said they could not attend the day session because of work.

At first, the meetings drew crowds of 20 to 30 people. But as the bankruptcy crisis stabilized, attendance dropped significantly.

One source of contention among community activists is that the night meetings usually contain only about half the agenda items of day meetings. County officials say the night sessions are lighter to reduce the number of county employees who have to work overtime and to avoid bogging down the sessions with mundane matters.

But critics see another motive. “It’s like a cat-and-mouse game,” said Bruce Whitaker, a leader of the Committees of Correspondence anti-tax group. “You don’t often see the controversial items on the night agenda. And when you do, you sit there until 10 or 11 just to have them waffle and postpone a final decision. It’s a little game.”

Orange County is the only major county in California that does not televise its Board of Supervisors meetings. Supervisors Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer have proposed a pilot program to videotape meetings and ask cable companies to broadcast them.

But the other three supervisors have resisted the idea, some fearing the cameras would bring a “circus atmosphere” to the board room.

“Being able to watch the supervisors on TV would be a great move,” said Bill Ward, head of the group Drivers for Highway Safety and one of the few activists who continues to attend some night meetings. Ward is that rare breed of man who insists he would tune into a board meeting over “Dawson’s Creek” or “Dateline NBC.”

Wilson, who proposed the 6 p.m. start, said the move might not only improve attendance but also would be more efficient for county officials, who now must hang around the Hall of Administration until the 7 p.m. start.

The supervisor said he also is considering having the board occasionally hold meetings outside Santa Ana to allow more people to view the proceedings.

But it remains unclear how much any of these ideas would boost attendance. Patricia Harrigan, who attends almost all board meetings for the League of Women Voters, said that except for a few hot-button issues like the El Toro airport, the supervisors don’t deal with many sexy topics.

“A lot of what they do is not of immediate concern to the general public. It’s often very incremental,” she said. “I’m not sure moving the meetings to 6 p.m. is going to change that.”

Whitaker, however, said the earlier start might well draw more people.

“If you can get there right after work, it would be better,” he said. “You wouldn’t have time to grab a bite to eat. But, after all, if you are leaner and hungrier, you are less likely to doze off during all those hearings.”