Editorial: Puyallup: Televise your city council meetings

A few weeks ago, the Puyallup City Council was discussing how to broadcast council meetings, on television or on the Web. Now that the city staff has presented the council with the costs of broadcasting the meetings, they are having some debate about doing it at all.

Council has learned that it will cost $31,000 annually to broadcast on television and $36,000 up-front plus $1,900 each month to go on the Internet.

While most other Pierce County cities, small and large, justify this cost, Puyallup is having second thoughts. Council shouldn’t let dollars get in the way of providing its residents with this important access to their municipal government. Not everyone can attend council meetings in person, despite what Mayor Don Malloy thinks. Tough commutes, long work hours and basic scheduling conflicts prevent many residents from attending the meetings, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested or should be denied the opportunity to view their elected officials in action.

Not everyone will rush home to watch the city council meetings, but televising the meetings does give every taxpayer that option. Such a commitment to open government could justify the cost alone. When council invites voters into the political process, they increase the public’s knowledge of issues and their understanding of council decisions. That transparency can only benefit everyone in the long run.

Putting council on TV is not about giving council members a larger soap box or a chance to play for the cameras. It’s about giving residents a chance to become involved with their city government in a way that wasn’t available to them in the past.

Puyallup can’t shy away from this, if it seriously considers itself a regional leader. The city recently spent $40 million constructing a new city hall in the hopes of making Puyallup a major destination. It’s the impressive completion of a civic center that caters to valley residents in every way, offering an activity center, library, park and political arena that wasn’t without controversy.

Our city’s taxpayers deserve another opportunity that helps them take measure of their elected officials. And council should take advantage of another means of communicating with its constituents.