City Hall spending millions on TV and public relations

Saturday, March 25, 2000 | 3:20 a.m.

The expenditures include about $800,000 to renovate council chambers so meetings appear better on the new city TV station, which itself is costing millions of dollars. Council members recently spent $180,000 to remodel their offices, and they have nearly doubled outlays on communications staff over the past six months.

Meanwhile, officials are considering two new TV studios - including one inside of a van so that the city can broadcast parades, neighborhood meetings, traffic light startups and other events. The combined cost: about $2.2 million.

Most of the money is coming out of the general budget, meaning funds that would go to other services are instead being used to beef up video and communications. In future years, officials hope that a portion of franchise fees paid by Cox Communications will cover the TV station's costs.

Even so, critics wonder if the council is putting too high a premium on its public image. A limited government TV station can be useful, but the city is going overboard, they say.

"This is a questionable use of taxpayer money in my opinion," former Mayor Jan Jones said, referring to the council chambers renovation and the plan for two new studios. Officials appear to be expanding the TV station far beyond what she believed was appropriate when she left office in June, Jones said.

City officials defend their efforts. The cable TV station helps to keep the public informed about government, and a recent expansion of the City Council by two members prompted the hiring of more communications staff, they say.

"I think the most important thing we can do is have open government," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, who appears every other week on an hourlong call-in show. "We're in the 21st century now and I think the public should know what government officials are doing."

The controversy quietly emerged at a council meeting earlier this month.

In its first vote of the morning, the board approved $511,000 to replace electronic equipment in City Hall chambers. The spending, part of an estimated $800,000 makeover to the meeting room, passed with no discussion and in one lump vote with dozens of other items deemed routine and noncontroversial.

Later, council members turned to fire stations and parks. They discussed at length the lack of money in the budget for those needs - which have lagged behind the city's booming population - then voted unanimously to ask residents to raise their property taxes