What's wrong with Tracy Unified School District and its refusal once again to broadcast school board meetings on community cable TV? Are school district afficials afraid that the camera will add 10 pounds to their frames, or that their foreheads will reflect the lighting?
Not to televise public meetings is lame. So, too, is the excuse given last week by Gerry Machado, a Tracy Unified School District trustee. Machado – who, by the way, is an Assembly candidate in the June 2006 Republican primary – says to allow the board meetings to be televised would disenfranchise citizens who don't have cable TV. He was just repeating what Superintendent Jim Franco has been saying. That's strange, since Franco enjoys having a microphone in his hand in front of audiences.
Machado and Franco are wrong. Broadcasting taped school board meetings will increase awareness of school district policies and educational activities. More, not fewer citizens will become informed, educated and involved.
The recent request for televised meetings by Wes Huffman, a Williams Middle School teacher and former member of the Tracy City Council (which does videotape its sessions), is the latest in a series that dates back three years.
That's when the council's cable subcommittee began asking school officials for tapes of the meetings. Even then-City Manager Fred Diaz made several requests to "please send a tape." The school district's most recent response was that it was running tapes through the system to test equipment. But no actual tape has ever surfaced for City Hall.
What the school district officials are supposedly testing is a state-of-the-art taping system that was built into the school board room at the new James French Education Center. There are three cameras mounted in the ceiling and connected to a taping system that makes the chore as easy as sliding a videotape casset into a recorder and popping it out at the end of the meeting.
In fact, the school board meetings are already videotaped for posterity by a district official.
If anyone is worried about the possible amateurish quality of the taping, let the public decide. No one is asking for Emmy Award-winning documentaries.
And the school district shouldn't be worried about cost. Questions City Councilwoman Suzanne Tucker, a member of the cable subcommittee and an opponent of Machado in the Assembly primary, "How much does a videotape cassette cost these days?"
The answer: It's a lot less expensive than an underutilized taping system.
We suggest the school board give "lights, camera, action" a try.