Santa Ana city officials are targeting photojournalists during public city council meetings, insisting they work out of a remote corner of the hearing chambers or take photos from seats in the audience.
Photojournalists are now also restricted from moving around the council chamber aisles to get images of official deliberations and public comment.
This new media policy was just rolled out one day by city staff under the thumb of a mayor that doesn’t like media coverage without any public discussion by city council members, much less any effort to consult with members of the press corps before adopting such ridiculous restrictions.
Most importantly, this childish overreaction just ignores state law.
Santa Ana residents should take notice of this deeply troubling authoritarian tendency to literally pen in the press – an official policy that no other public body that I have covered across Orange County in the last 20 years has ever instituted.
Much less enforced.
Yet that is exactly what’s happening in Santa Ana.
Enough is Enough
Voice of OC is publicly protesting this new policy and is exploring legal options.
In the meantime, we won’t be using photos anymore to illustrate council members or official deliberations in stories.
We’re switching to cartoons to accurately capture the tone of the new city policy and the politicians behind it until these questionable restrictions are lifted.
We will not comply with this policy, which flies in the face of state law.
Given the instability of governance at Santa Ana City Hall – where a police chief and city manager were both recently forced out by the city council amidst corruption allegations involving leadership of the city’s police union – Voice of OC will not put photojournalists at risk inside the council chambers given the city’s ad hoc enforcement efforts.
[Read: Why Did Santa Ana Pay Out Over $600K to Settle a Claim Alleging the Police Union Runs City Hall?]
This is after all, a city hall where one council member – Jonathan Hernandez – says he takes an Uber to city hall over fears that he could be targeted by the local police department.
Hernandez has filed a complaint against Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua – whose campaign was heavily financed by the local police union – saying she violated state law in securing the votes needed for the police chief and city manager ouster.
[Read: How Beholden Are Santa Ana Lawmakers to the Powerful Police Union?]
Dark stuff.
Yet more than a year after Hernandez filed his complaint, he says there’s been zero follow up from District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
Since becoming district attorney, Spitzer’s been hesitant to examine virtually all allegations of political wrongdoing.
[Read: OC District Attorney Rarely Prosecutes Political Crimes]
A Secretly Crafted Policy
I reached out to Amezcua to hear her perspective, but she texted me back admonishing me to only reach out on her city-issued phone. I sent a text to the cell she provided but never got a response or follow up – a pattern other reporters at Voice of OC have seen as well.
Several other council members did engage.
Apparently, there’s been an ongoing, internal argument over this new policy – which Amezcua reportedly pushed for – since its first flawed iteration was rolled out in December.
The next month, California’s First Amendment Coalition led a wide array of journalistic groups – including the OC Press Club – in protesting the policy.
“The policy violates the Ralph M. Brown Act and threatens the ability of the press to exercise editorial discretion in covering public meetings,” wrote the coalition’s Legal Director, David Loy. “We urge you to immediately withdraw the policy and commit to adhering to the Brown Act and respecting press rights.”
Loy noted the relevant portion of the state law to city officials, which plainly sets a standard inviting robust coverage and images of meetings.
“Any person attending an open and public meeting of a legislative body of a local agency shall have the right to record the proceedings with an audio or video recorder or a still or motion picture camera in the absence of a reasonable finding by the legislative body of the local agency that the recording cannot continue without noise, illumination, or obstruction of view that constitutes, or would constitute, a persistent disruption of the proceedings.”
The key here is defining what is a “persistent disruption,” which Santa Ana’s latest version of the policy now defines as just about anything done outside of a seat – a standard not found anywhere else in Orange County.
The present Santa Ana policy discriminates against anyone with a camera as opposed to focusing on enforcing existing state law, which allows for restrictions to be placed on someone creating a persistent disruption of the meetings.
In 15 years of publishing news photos from all over Orange County – including cities, the county government and special districts – I have never received a complaint from any public body – including Santa Ana – about disruptive behavior from a photographer working with Voice of OC.
Being confined to taking photos from staged areas or from audience seats is not how photojournalism works – especially not in California where our forefathers left us an open meeting law in 1953, calling out for vibrant visual expression
“Most people think we just take photos,” said Thomas Cordova, President of the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles and a photo editor at the Long Beach Post.
“They don’t understand we are photojournalists, we tell stories when we make our photos,” Cordova added.
“Penning photographers,” Cordova stressed, is a form of prior restraint, in essence a blanket approach that blames everyone for the abuses of a few.
“As long as photographers are professional and unobtrusive,” he added, “there should be no problem allowing them to do the work they are there for.”
The January letter from the First Amendment Coalition apparently triggered a series of emails among council members on the press policy, with several publicly protesting it.
Councilwoman Jessie Lopez posted a protest from her, Councilman Johnathan Hernandez and Benjamin Vasquez directly to Instagram and invited press photographers to freely do their work at city council chambers.
City Attorney Sonya Carvalho also wrote back to the coalition saying the policy would be revised.
But the newly released policy still blocks photojournalists from doing their work.
Its impact is also really uneven as it creates a situation where only someone with very expensive zoom lenses can get still photography of council members from the tiny press pen so far away in the rear of the hearing room.
Additionally, it’s very unclear how the policy is enforced or what the sanctions are for violations.
Santa Ana City Public Information Officer Paul Eakins last week defended his request to one of our photographers to move to a rear media section after she temporarily used a tripod to get a photo near the governing dais.
“Our goal at City of Santa Ana public meetings is always to maintain transparency, public and media access, and compliance with the First Amendment and the Brown Act,” said Eakins of the policy that experts say trashes state law.
“We recognize that at times, members of the news media need to use large equipment like tripods for photo and video cameras,” Eakins wrote me in an email, adding “but we also must ensure that aisles, emergency exits and public access points remain clear for both members of the public and public safety personnel.”
Councilman David Penaloza also defended the city policy in a text back to me seeking comment.
“Front-row areas are often occupied by wheelchair users and elderly residents, and having a photographer set up right in front of them is both unfair and disrespectful,” Penaloza wrote – again ignoring state law.
“Similarly, city staff, who are seated in the front rows, can be distracted by equipment placed in their view or having someone standing in front of them while taking pictures,” Penaloza added.
“This is why our PIO, along with the City Attorney’s Office and City Clerk’s Office, decided to establish a designated media space with a clear view of the chambers,” Penaloza wrote, again ignoring that the section designated for filming is far back of the chambers.
Again, trying to rewrite state law, Penaloza noted that the tiny press pen in the rear of the hearing room, “ensures that staff policy remains consistent and allows the media to perform their work effectively, while also ensuring that all attendees can view and engage with the meeting without obstruction.”
Councilman Vazquez and Hernandez both told me they were against the policy and supported a public debate on the issue.
Councilmembers Lopez, Thai Viet Phan and Phil Bacerra didn’t respond to an interview request.
Councilman Vazquez, who is running against Amezcua for Mayor in November, said he would push for a public discussion by council members.
Councilman Hernandez also said he supports a public discussion – and vote – by council members, adding that he not only sees the restrictions as a clear violation of state law but an even more troubling sign of a sustained attack on the rule of law at Santa Ana city hall.
