TV Pilot Begins for Supervisors (Yes, They Could Be Canceled)

Tonight’s meeting of the Orange County Board of Supervisors will be the first to be videotaped and broadcast countywide as part of a three-week pilot project that the board narrowly approved in March.

The board hopes to use the three pilots--tonight, May 4 and May 11--to assess costs and public reaction. The county’s staff has estimated the cost of professional television broadcasts at $325,000 for equipment and about $1,600 per meeting for production.

KOCE will air the meetings countywide between 1 and 5 a.m. May 1, 8 and 15. Tapes of the meetings will be copied and distributed to the county’s six cable TV companies for delayed transmission on their public access channels. The cable companies will play the meeting tapes at various times, and some will have repeats in certain cities.

The videotaping and production of the pilot segments will be services donated by Time Warner Communications, Comcast Cablevision and the television department at Chapman University.

Until the supervisors voted 3 to 2 to televise meetings, the county was the only major one in the state yet to do that, even though 75% of the residents favored it, according to a Times Orange County Poll.

“It’s the board’s desire that the public be able to see how the meetings are conducted, how they go about doing the public’s business,” county spokeswoman Diane Thomas said.

The board meets at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays, except for the last week of the month, when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday. People who cannot attend meetings will now have the opportunity to see the board in action, Thomas said.

The board, meanwhile, also has increased access to its meetings by transmitting them in audio on the county’s Web site. Residents can hear real-time audio from current board meetings at https://www.oc.ca.gov and listen to previous meetings.

Public comments on agenda items also can be submitted through the Web site. The comments will be read at the weekly meetings and entered into the public record.