Over the last year, work and personal obligations have led me to pull back from some of my involvement in Doraville politics. I know that a lot of other people are in the same situation as me–it’s hard to take time off to make all the special “work sessions” or council meetings that run late into the night. There are a lot of times when I can’t make these meetings, and neither can other working citizens in the city. I was recently thinking to myself how nice it would be if I could watch the city council meetings online–on my own schedule.
Ideally the city would be filming & posting its meetings online. A guiding principle of good government should be citizen access. Responsible lawmakers should do everything possible to make what they are doing is accessible to the public view.
Since our city still doesn’t even have a decent website, I knew that my wish for them to record and publish their meetings online is just a pipe dream for now. Sometimes if you want something done, you have to do it yourself–which is exactly what I decided to do.
At the urging of some friends, I came to the most recent city council meeting to see the discussion about domestic partnership benefits for Doraville employees & also the debate over whether or not to fire our city planner. Because I had this idea about making the meetings more accessible to the public, I brought my new videocamera with me so I could record the meeting and post it online.
Imagine my surprise, about 11 minutes into the meeting when a police officer approached me and told me that I was not allowed to film the city council without their express permission. Since I’ve seen news crews in there filming multiple times, I did not see the problem with an actual voter who lives in Doraville filming his elected representatives.
I complied with the officer’s request and sat through a few more minutes of the meeting.
About 5 minutes after I was spoken to, the Mayor got very upset when he saw that someone else was recording the city council meeting. He told the guy to stop filming because there was an ordinance against it. The city attorney told the mayor that it was actually a resolution that had been passed in 1999 and that prohibited folks form filming without the council’s permission. The guy in the back turned off his camera and said, “OK, I’ve turned off my camera. Can I have permission to film?”. The mayor was very upset and said, “No.” Some of the council people, though, shook their heads in disbelief, like they couldn’t understand what there was to hide. Marlene Hadden made a motion to allow anyone wants to film the council to do so. Bob Spangler, Donna Pittman, and Jason Anavitarte voted in favor of it (I did not see how Ed Lowe voted, since he practically hides behind the council table). After that, we were allowed to film again, and I started back up where I’d left off.
I truly believe that the council needs to change its resolution about allowing people to film their meetings. They’re doing the public’s business–the public should have a right to document that. I’m always suspicious of people who act like they have something to hide. It usually means they do. I want to trust my officials, I hope they give me reason to trust them. Please councilmembers Hadden, Pittman, Spangler, Anavitarte, Lowe & Hart: please allow the public to film your meetings and prove that you have nothing to hide.
Anyway, the video from Monday, August 7th’s council meeting is below. The first clip is from the 11 minutes before I was told to stop filming by the Doraville PD. The second clip is from after the council voted to allow us to film again for that meeting.