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Rancho Santa Margarita and La Palma officials still won’t allow residents to watch public meetings online in real time – where critical decisions about quality of life issues are decided.
Voice of OC, in collaboration with Chapman University students, conducted an investigation earlier this year that found they were the only two cities in Orange County who did not livestream their meetings.
[Read: Making it Easy to Watch Local Government From Home]
The investigation graded Orange County cities on how accessible their respective city council meetings are to the general public.
Every city in Orange County received either an A or B grade.
But not La Palma and Rancho Santa Margarita, who each received a D grade.
Annie Cappetta, a legal fellow at the First Amendment Coalition– a public interest group dedicated to free speech and open meetings– said the lack of virtual accessibility keeps residents in the dark.
“People have to know what’s going on to be able to hold their government accountable and raise issues as they see them,” said Cappetta.
Cappetta also raised issues about accessibility to those who are physically unable to attend the meetings in-person.
“Remote public access and participation are essential to allow people who may have barriers to entry for in-person civic engagement,” said Capetta. “From work to child care to transportation to health reasons, it gives them the opportunity to see what’s going on in their community.”
Audio-only meetings can make it more difficult to understand who is speaking throughout meetings.
A lack of captioning could also make meetings inaccessible for those with hearing loss.
[Read: Unheard: Orange County Shuts Out Deaf Residents From Public Meeting Broadcasts]
Capetta said The Brown Act in California protects residents’ rights to access official city meetings and select city documents. However, the Act does not address the live streaming of meetings.
“It is legal to not live stream, not post a video, not post audio,” Capetta said. “From our perspective, that’s a real problem with the Brown Act.”
When contacted, Rancho San Margarita’s city officials refused to comment or respond to questions regarding their decision.
La Palma’s official website does not list the contact information for city council members and La Palma Deputy City Manager Joseph Cisneros didn’t respond to requests for comment or requests for contact information of city council members.
But debates on live streams have popped off in La Palma before.
According to La Palma City Clerk Kimberly Kenney, the last time the city discussed live streaming city council meetings was during a meeting on February 7, 2023.
At that meeting, Councilmember Janet Conklin urged the council to consider looking at implementing video live streaming.
“I would like for us to be a little more open and transparent to the rest of our community, respectfully, I just think that we are not in the Stone Age,” Conklin said.
During discussion of the issue and especially between comments from different council members, the meeting audio was repeatedly cut off – prompting Conklin to comment.
“To my point, we need to improve our technology,” she said.
La Palma City Councilmembers Nitesh Patel, Mark Waldman and Debbie Baker opposed the implementation of video live streaming.
“I don’t know that video would really add that much,” Waldman said.
“My concerns going forward with this are cost, infrastructure, and how we would implement it. I get that other cities do this, but they are a lot larger than us,” Patel said.
Council member Marshall Goodman proposed directing staff to look into both improving audio quality and what video live streaming options might be available without committing any city funding.
The proposal was rejected.
Kenney said the city council has not changed its stance on the issue.
Rancho Santa Margarita Public Information Officer Laura Lopez said the city adheres to state law.
“The city complies with all aspects of the Brown Act. At this time we do not video stream council meetings. The city has no further information, response, or statements related to this inquiry,” she said.
Matthew Jarvis, an associate professor of Political Science at California State University, Fullerton, said there are some drawbacks to livestreaming meetings.
Jarvis said the tradition of video live streaming began with C-SPAN TV broadcasts of Congressional hearings in the 1970s, and how this has “been transforming the floor of Congress into political theater.”
“Since everything on the floor could be used for a campaign commercial, that’s all it really is at this point,” said Jarvis.
Jarvis also said many big government decisions happen behind closed doors, diminishing the seeming importance of live streaming.
“The actual work of legislating and compromising happens off the floor, out of sight,” Jarvis said.
However, Fred Smoller, associate professor of Political Science at Chapman University and expert on California local politics said it benefits residents to live stream video of city council meetings.
“Being able to watch or tune in to city council meetings helps to increase the informed electorate, and makes the system more user friendly,” Smoller said.
Smoller also said in today’s day and age, there is no real justification for city councils to fail to provide video streams of meetings.
“It’s just not that expensive to video stream city council meetings, most of the cities have cameras set up anyway,” he said.
“They should all be doing it.”
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