Is the County Ready for Prime Time?

Three-quarters of Orange County’s residents want weekly meetings of the Board of Supervisors aired on television, a Times Orange County Poll found, but the board has been reluctant to go on camera.

Supervisors will consider a modest proposal today to tape three meetings and then submit the matter to county staff for further study, including an estimated cost for regular broadcasts.

“The supervisors’ camera shyness is not playing well,” said Cheryl Katz, vice president of Baldassare Associates, which conducted the poll for The Times.

Orange County is the only major county in the state that doesn’t televise its board of supervisors’ meetings. One plan to do so was killed outright, and supervisors failed to act on another after some questioned the cost and worried about the potential for grandstanding.

Supervisors have been holding one regular meeting a month on Tuesday evenings to give residents a chance to drive to Santa Ana to see them in action. Typically, meetings start at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays, when most people are at work and cannot attend.

The Times poll found that 75% of county residents--78% of those registered to vote--support televised meetings. Nearly half of those polled, however, said they would watch only occasionally. More than a third said they would seldom or never tune in. Only 14% said they would be loyal viewers.

The contrast between solid support for televised meetings and marginal interest in watching them indicates the public is more interested in making sure government is open than in actually participating in it, said Martin Wattenberg, a professor of political science at UC Irvine.

Generally, “openness sells,” he said. Public participation in government is driven by issues.

While there might be only a small cadre of constant viewers for board meetings, interest would spike substantially for something controversial, such as the proposal to build a commercial airport at the El Toro Marine base.

“Where it really can make a difference is with a high-profile issue when [supervisors] know people might be watching,” Wattenberg said.

That’s reason enough for Robert Griffiths, a retired sales and marketing executive in Tustin. He said he probably would not watch a televised meeting often but said it’s important that supervisors know they are being filmed.

“It makes people more accountable and keeps them honest,” Griffiths said. “I think it’d end up paying for itself.”

Supervisor Tom Wilson said the poll results show that the board has solid approval to move forward even if viewership might be small. “Perhaps those numbers will increase once they view us in action,” he said.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who also supports televised meetings, said giving people the option of watching would be money well spent. “I don’t think any of us are trying to flatter ourselves that this will be prime-time TV,” he said.

Supervisors Cynthia Coad and Charles V. Smith have said they favor the idea of televising meetings but won’t lend support to the proposal unless the taped meetings are broadcast throughout the county.

Supervisor Jim Silva has opposed the idea of televised board meetings, asserting that people too often engage in grandstanding in front of the camera.

Even with agreement, the supervisors face other obstacles that could hamper them. The county’s 11 private cable companies, for instance, serve different areas. As part of franchise agreements for operating within cities, cable companies agree to broadcast those cities’ council meetings. But there is no such mechanism for county government, which approves franchises just for unincorporated areas.

In Los Angeles County, supervisors buy time for $400 an hour from KLCS Channel 58, a UHF station owned by Los Angeles Unified schools. In San Francisco County, where city and county boundaries are the same, one cable company broadcasts both City Council and county board meetings.

But supporters of televised meetings in Orange County said difficulties in hammering out the details of a broadcast proposal are no excuse for not allowing residents to view government in action.

Past concerns about grandstanding or residents taking over a meeting simply aren’t realistic, said Tricia Harrigan of the League of Women Voters’ county chapter, which supports televised meetings.

“We’ve been through the grandstanding stage; it was called the bankruptcy,” she said. “There are meetings that people won’t spend a lot of time watching, but they owe it to the public to show them anyway. The public has a right to that option.”

About the Poll

The Times Orange County Poll, addressing several topics in the news, was conducted by Baldassare Associates under the direction of Cheryl Katz. The random telephone survey of 600 Orange County adults was conducted Feb. 26 through March 2. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Statistically, this means there is a 95% chance that the results would fall inside that range if every adult resident in Orange County were interviewed. For subgroups, such as residents of regions, the margin of error is larger.

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Lights, Camera, Supes

Three-quarters of Orange County residents favor televising supervisors’ meetings, and nearly two-thirds say they would watch at least once in a while:

* Do you favor or oppose televising the supervisors’ meetings?

Favor: 75%

Oppose: 13

No opinion: 12

* If the supervisors’ meetings were televised, do you think you would watch?

Every/most of the time: 14%

Once in a while: 48

Seldom: 20

Never: 17

Don’t know: 1

Source: Times Orange County Poll