Merrell Wood: Viewers miss out on ‘meeting before the meeting’

Do you know that Middletown’s City Council no longer televises all of its public “work sessions”?

Do you know what a work session is? It is when our City Council representatives and city staff members get together to discuss many of the important issues facing our city.

I bring this up because at council’s recently completed annual retreat, City Manager Judy Gilleland recommended — and council agreed — that certain work sessions should not be televised because it “will allow for more discussion on sensitive issues that wouldn’t qualify for an executive session but are awkward to work on while on TV.”

Ironically, something similar, but different, happened a few years back when City Council moved their work sessions upstairs, off-camera, because they felt the public was abusing their on-camera opportunity to make “citizen comments.” After a few months and some sustained criticism, council reluctantly agreed to return to their chambers and conduct the public’s business in front of the cameras. Appropriate rules of conduct were written for “citizen comments” and the public’s behavior was brought under control.

However, today I pity the fool who innocently goes beyond making a polite “citizen comment” and actually asks a direct question to council. Without fail, the mayor will immediately respond by informing the citizen that “we’re not set up to do that.” Over the years, questions from the public have seldom been encouraged during televised council meetings.

When it comes to the location of where and when council wishes to hold its meetings, it seems that what happened before is happening again. However, this time it is not about the public’s abuse of “citizen comments.” This time it’s about council’s decision to once again move certain work sessions upstairs off-camera (and open to the public), and then returning downstairs on-camera for the second half of its meeting.

Based upon the elimination of televised coverage of certain City Council work sessions, one has to ask: If the public may attend the off-camera work sessions, why is the “discussion of sensitive issues awkward to work on while on TV” not something that all citizens can hear or see while at home, watching the proceedings on TV Middletown?

One might think that the only difference between work sessions being televised or not is the size of the audience. The number of citizens in attendance during an average council meeting: Less than 30. The average number of citizens who watch TV Middletown coverage of a council meeting: More than 2,000.

Certainly, it’s understandable that the new format may allow for a more relaxed atmosphere for council members to discuss issues more thoroughly and thoughtfully, but it is still a public meeting. For more than 10 years, the public has had the opportunity to watch the “whole” council meeting on-camera and there should be no reason to deny them that opportunity now.

Since the vast majority of city residents cannot attend City Council’s 5:30 meetings for a variety of obvious reasons, if the city does not have the personnel or equipment to cover the new upstairs meetings, perhaps TV Middletown can do so and televise it at a later time.

Ironically, when it comes to TV Middletown’s most popular programming, City Council meetings are second only to coverage of Middies football and basketball games. Considering those numbers, it seems to me that citizen involvement is more likely to happen through televised meetings than not.

Looking back to 1998, when TV Middletown was founded, one of the most challenging issues in bringing it to life wasn’t just raising the necessary start-up capital and finding a place to call home. It was convincing the city manager and council to allow cameras into their public but practically private meetings. Initially, the concept was declared a “non-starter” because, for too many years, council members had enjoyed the convenience of conducting the public’s business with few of the public in attendance.

As an example of what I’m talking about, earlier this week, during council’s un-televised work session, there was a discussion about the city’s historic but dysfunctional hydraulic canal. It has been a source of problems for home owners in the area for many years. However, unless those citizens directly involved with the issue were physically in attendance at that meeting, their knowledge about the city’s plans for the future of the canal was greatly diminished. Had the meeting been televised, they could have watched it live, seen it cable-cast any number of times, or had access to it at anytime on TV Middletown’s Web site.

Today, thanks to TV Middletown, practically anyone can watch televised coverage of our city officials working in a public setting to better inform our citizens about issues of importance to their lives and community. Without complete coverage, the public may eventually conclude that their City Council representatives have more interest in themselves than in the citizens they represent.

For that simple reason, City Council should return televised coverage of their work sessions and team up with city staff to expand the opportunities for citizens to learn more about the issues that challenge Middletown’s future. As our city manager has said on a number of occasions, “improved communication on the city’s part will allow our citizens to be more engaged.” I couldn’t agree more.