End Board’s Stalling on Telecasts

What is it about television that the Board of Supervisors does not understand? The device has been commonplace in households for nearly half a century. You use it to communicate. It can be your friend. It need not fill the heart with terror.

Last week the supervisors again stalled on televising their meetings. They postponed any action on a pilot project that would allow taping three sessions to determine how to distribute them to television stations and what the project might cost. By the time the board gets around to joining the rest of California’s major counties in televising its proceedings, the century could be over.

The newest member of the board, Cynthia Coad, said last week that the proposal sounds good, but what about broadcasting over the Internet or radio?

Well, yes. But then, too, what about messages in a bottle? What about shouting from the rooftops to announce zoning changes and park budgets? There are many methods of communication, and TV need not be conditional upon the use of any of them.

Supervisor Charles V. Smith says he won’t support meetings on television unless the sessions are broadcast countywide, and not some time after midnight on public television. Again, these are needless conditions. Television stations routinely bump even presidential speeches if they find them uninteresting.

The intent of broadcasting meetings would not be to benefit the supervisors, though most politicians believe exposure nearly always helps. The purpose is to benefit the residents of the county, the men and women who elect the supervisors to be their representatives.

The supervisors generally meet on a weekday morning at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana. Someone with a job, which means most people, would have to take time off from work to get to the meeting.

Supervisors Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer favor televising the proceedings. Wilson says the taping of three meetings would let the county judge costs and interest on the part of cable companies.

When the supervisors take up the proposal again March 30, they should approve it. End the stalling. Let the public see its elected officials at work.