Santa Ana officials are considering adjusting a policy that restricts where photojournalists can take pictures during public meetings at city hall after pushback from journalist organizations and a prominent First Amendment rights group.
It’s also a restriction Voice of OC’s Publisher and Editor in Chief Norberto Santana Jr. criticized in a recent column, instituting a policy protesting the photo restrictions by running a cartoon depiction of council meetings.
[Read: Santana: Politicians in Santa Ana Don’t Want Residents To See Them Up Close]
On Monday during a continued city council meeting from last week, council members directed staff to come back with changes to the media policy to make it more flexible depending on how crowded the council chambers are during meetings.
Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan, who called for a more flexible policy, said at Monday’s meeting that it is common to have press zones to ensure emergency personnel like police officers can have clear access throughout the room.
“We can have something that’s a little bit more flexible and doable depending on the situation,” she said.
Yet in recent years, Voice of OC photojournalists have only been confined to a certain space in one other place when the Orange Unified School District board meeting was packed last year.
Councilman David Penaloza agreed with Phan, saying there needs to be a balance and that he has no problem with reporters trying to capture photos in the front aisles when the chambers are not packed.
“When there are packed chambers like we’ve seen in the past, standing in front of somebody that’s seated in a wheelchair – like we’ve seen before – that’s just plain rude,” he said.
Penaloza also said he wants to make meetings comfortable for residents to speak their mind.
“We want to make it a comfortable space for everybody that’s exercising their First Amendment right to come and speak and if it’s a packed chamber, packed room, yeah, they should be designated areas for the press to hang out in,” he said about the policy.
The California First Amendment Coalition is calling on officials to rescind the media policy, arguing it goes against state law.
Last week, David Loy, the coalition’s legal director, told the Voice of OC the Brown Act – California’s open meeting law – guarantees journalists the right to record a city council meeting as long as there is no persistent disruption to the meeting.
[Read: Will Santa Ana Officials Lift Restrictions on Photojournalists at Public Meetings?]
Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director with the First Amendment Coalition, sent a letter to city council members demanding they withdraw the policy – citing reporting by the Voice of OC.
“Given the Brown Act gives the city council necessary tools for taking action against a person
who causes a persistent disruption, and given the First Amendment’s protections against
discriminating against members of the press who may at times photograph or record meetings, the city should immediately move forward with abandoning its policy,” reads LaRoe’s Sept. 17 letter.
City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said the current policy complies with state law.
“I’m also very respectful of a council that wants flexibility and wants to be able to be responsive to some of the comments you received,” she said at Monday’s meeting.
Councilman Phil Bacerra also supported revisions and called Santa Ana the most “transparent” city in OC.
“There are folks that are able to watch this meeting at home on YouTube, able to participate via Zoom. We were doing that during the pandemic, when a lot of other cities weren’t,” he said, adding that a senior editor at the OC Register also called on officials to revise the policy.
In OC’s largest city, Mayor Ashleigh Aitken declared Anaheim the most transparent in OC following a host of reforms in the wake of a corruption scandal.
Over there, Voice of OC journalists haven’t been placed in certain areas of a room to report and take pictures from – even in the wake of the scandal when the council chambers were packed.
However, the city does not allow residents to make public comments over Zoom and only recently started streaming live meetings on YouTube.
Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, who along with Councilman Benjamin Vazquez, unsuccessfully pushed to nix the policy, said staff should ensure the revised policy doesn’t violate the Brown Act and is vetted by city lawyers.
“We don’t have to like the press. We don’t have to like what they write. But we have to respect them because they’re an important component of our democracy, and they do great reporting,” Lopez said.
The policy was revised before by removing a section that explicitly prohibits filming, photography and recording “in aisles, in front of the dais, in front of doors/entrances/emergency exits, and at any other locations that may impede the movement of meeting attendees.”
The current policy still requires photographers using large equipment like tripods to take pictures from designated areas.
In the past, city spokesman Paul Eakins defended the media policy and his request to a Voice of OC photographer to move to a rear media section to take pictures.
“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,” Eakins said in a previous email.
“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.”
Eakins himself has taken pictures of people during council presentations in an aisle in front of the dais.
He said in an email last week that he only takes a brief moment to take the photo and journalists not using large equipment can sit anywhere in the council chambers.
“This is brief and not during a time when doing so would block the public’s view of the Council deliberations, votes, presentations, etc., nor are individuals blocking the aisles or doorways. I also don’t use or place tripods in the aisles for this, which again is the primary purpose of the media guidelines in order to keep these areas clear,” he wrote.
The revisions to the media policy is expected to come back for a vote in 30 days.
Phan publicly asked if city staff could exert flexibility in enforcing the policy in the meantime.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua and City Manager Alvaro Nuñez pushed back on the idea, saying it would be difficult to implement fairly.
“We want to be consistent,” Nuñez said. “We want to be fair.”
Julie Leopo contributed to the reporting in this article.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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