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closeTalking about going 'On Air'
Puyallup City Council to explore broadcasting meetings at new city hall
Chris Albert
With the new Puyallup City Hall opening its doors in August, city staff are exploring how to open the public’s window to council meetings a little wider.
“We’re doing the public’s business and the public has the right to know,” said Mayor Don Malloy.
During budgetary sessions this summer, the city council will look at options to televise their council meetings.
“This gives people the opportunity to see what’s going on in the council and what the council is doing,” Malloy said.
Neighboring cities, like Sumner broadcast their council meetings on cable.
“We’re just about the only municipality in the area that doesn’t,” said Deputy Mayor George Dill. “Let the public see what is actually going on.”
With only a fraction of the 38,000 people that live in Puyallup being able to attend meetings at any given time, using technology to provide access could broaden availability, Dill said. That doesn’t necessarily mean Puyallup needs to broadcast through a cable channel, but could be through a Web cast.
“I look forward to the discussion of televising or Web casting,” said Councilmember Kathy Turner. “I’m not sure what that is until we look at costs.”
A draw back to using a cable feed would be that people who have cable would only have access to the feed. A Web cast would make the meeting available anywhere there is an Internet connection and a computer to show it.
An “on demand” function would be nice, Turner said, so people can view the meeting at anytime instead of having to wait until the meeting is scheduled to be broadcast.
Dill said, people could record the cable broadcast if they wanted. He’s concerned that if they go with a Web cast it would limit the availability to seniors who may not use the Internet or computers.
“There’s a lot of seniors in my district that don’t use the Internet, but they do have TVs,” Dill said.
It’s going to come down to availability and being cost effective in how they do it, Malloy said.
“That certainly should be a factor when we think about to what extent we make that available,” he said.
“In my opinion it’s money well spent,” Dill said. “I think we owe it to the public.”
There are many things to consider, Turner said. Cost is one part, but also what makes the most sense as far as providing information to the public.
In the past, she had concerns with televising meetings because it engages people after decisions have been made instead of before hand when their opinions could be considered. But as a piece in engaging the public it could be a benefit, Turner said.
“I think we need to do something,” she said. “Citizen involvement is very important to me and there are a lot of ways to do that.”
Dill said, he has wanted televised meetings for more than two years, but it never had the support. Public opinion may have changed that, he said.
“There’s an awful lot of people that are interested,” Dill said.
Providing information can’t be limited to just televising or Web casting meetings, Malloy said.
Maximizing the efficient use of all technologies keeps the public informed, he said. Broadcasting can be a piece that compliments the city’s newsletter, Web site and other ways of informing the public.
“There are a variety of ways to let the public know what’s happening in our city,” Malloy said. “I don’t think it’s anything groundbreaking. It’s just another way to keep people informed.”
Although technology provides a useful tool in staying connected with the residents of Puyallup, Turner said, it shouldn’t take the place of face-to-face communication with constituents.
“I probably communicate more one-on-on that anything else,” she said.
It’s pretty common to have someone come up to her and ask a question or voice a concern when she’s out and about throughout the city, she said.
“It’s not a bother I want to hear from you,” she tells them. “In our city it still can and does happen, but every effort that we can do to be more communicative I think that makes us better council members.”