What Video Feed?

In his ongoing quest to promote democracy through educating the public, Ed Kravitz of SaveIB.com has sought access to a video feed of Imperial Beach City Council meetings. His intention is to stream the meetings through his website. I.B. appears to be the only local jurisdiction not broadcasting its city council meetings.

Initially, Kravitz was told that the City did not have video capability and, thus, no video feed existed. The City recently spent approximately $200,000 on upgrades to council chambers.

Believing modern technology would have been included in the upgrades, Kravitz again began requesting access to video transmission. Various people — including the city clerk, city manager and city attorney — rejected his request, saying the City still lacked video capability.

But Kravitz doubted the truth of that statement. So, he paid a visit to the I.B. City Council meeting on January 20th to complain about what seemed like stonewalling. Accompanying him was another I.B. citizen’s advocate, John Carr. Kravitz addressed the council during the public comment period regarding his desire to broadcast the meetings.

In his presentation, Carr confronted the council with the fact that the City did indeed have video capability. He knew this because moments before arriving at the meeting he had seen the same council meeting on a large video screen in the adjacent “community room.”