UCLA’s undergraduate student government recently announced plans to live stream its meetings, a change it hopes to implement before the end of the quarter.
But at last night’s meeting, the Undergraduate Students Association Council voted to table indefinitely a proposal to purchase a camera for a live stream. Several councilmembers objected, as they have in the past, to the idea of making the videos available for viewing online after meetings.
If the council truly harbors a desire to include as many students as possible in its deliberations, it must immediately approve a plan not only to live stream the meetings but also to put those meetings on the record by making them digitally available afterwards.
USAC’s unwillingness to put into place an easy transparency measure gives the impression of a council that does not understand its responsibility as a group of elected officials.
A live stream does allow students to tune in remotely to USAC meetings, but only includes them in the council’s deliberations if they are free to sit at their computers at 7 p.m on Tuesdays. This hardly qualifies as a significant improvement to USAC’s outreach to the undergraduate population.
Some councilmembers support live streams but not archived videos, citing a concern that councilmembers may be cyberbullied and exposed to inflammatory comments.
At Tuesday’s meeting, USAC External Vice President Maryssa Hall said meetings should be seen as a “safe space” for public commenters to voice concerns. USAC Cultural Affairs Commissioner Jessica Trumble said that commenters can remain nameless if they refrain from identifying themselves, and commenters should maintain the option for partial anonymity if meetings are streamed.
What these councilmembers fail to realize is that meetings are already recorded, albeit in a more rudimentary form. The council posts minutes of its regular meetings online and includes the names and messages of all councilmembers as well as those of commenters who choose to identify themselves.
The only thing missing from these weekly minutes is clarity and total accuracy, both of which could be ensured with video recordings. With no demonstrated risk of cyber bullying to USAC, an archived recording of council meetings would only serve to improve the reporting and dissemination of weekly discussions and votes.
The logic supporting video recordings is simple, and it is in keeping with USAC bylaws and California codes governing public meetings. A governing body must conduct its business in full view of its constituency, and public commenters elect to become a part of the institution’s record by speaking at an explicitly public meeting.
California state law allows all governmental meetings to be recorded with audio or video equipment as long as the recording does not act to disrupt regular proceedings by noise, illumination or obstruction of view. Most recording devices would easily pass these considerations.
Given both the precedent and transparency considerations behind live streaming and recording meetings, the council has no valid reason to delay or equivocate.
If USAC does not plan to follow through properly on their self-appointed mission of transparency, it will fall upon campus news media to take up that responsibility independently.