Set Your VCR for Board Meetings

The Board of Supervisors grudgingly has agreed to televise three of its weekly meetings, a possible prelude to what it should have been doing long before now: making live telecasts available.

Public television station KOCE has agreed to show the meetings for $250 each. They will air between midnight and 5 a.m.

That’s not exactly prime time, but those interested in how their elected representatives conduct government business can either set their alarm clocks for some predawn viewing or set the VCR.

KOCE has the advantage of being able to be seen in all the homes in the county. None of the six cable companies operating in the county has that geographic sweep.

However, the tapes also will be copied and distributed to the cable companies for airing if they wish. Two, Comcast and Time Warner, have agreed to tape one meeting each for free. The county is looking for someone to produce the third session.

Cable companies that realize they have a responsibility to the community commensurate with their monopoly franchises should try to find room to televise the meetings.

Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson long have voted in favor of live television of the meetings. They managed to get the required third vote for the pilot program from Supervisor Charles V. Smith.

Smith said he declined to support proposals for televised meetings earlier because of cost concerns and his unwillingness to make tapes no one would show.

Supervisors Jim Silva and Cynthia Coad voted against the pilot program. Silva long has contended that televised meetings would draw spectators who only want to get themselves on TV. He said that’s what happened in Huntington Beach, where he was a City Council member.

Still, the Huntington Beach meetings have survived their encounter with the tube. They are still televised, Silva’s concerns notwithstanding. And the supervisors always can limit the time any member of the public is allowed to speak.

Some county staffers have come up with a new suggestion, that the county put the meetings on the Internet rather than TV. That sounds like a commendable attempt to get the county from the 19th century directly to the 21st. But the flaw is that fewer people in the county have computers than have televisions. Also, the county proposals for Internet use have envisioned only the audio from the meetings. A step up from the current lack of audio or video, but not as good as seeing the supervisors in action.

Residents should be able to see the supervisors’ meetings. Most are at work when the sessions are held, so even live TV would not reach too many people. But the board should be able to persuade stations to run the show in the evening. Even if the only available hours are after midnight, it’s better than nothing. Most counties in the state televise their meetings. So do many city councils and school boards. This is public business being conducted. It should be as accessible to the public as possible.