The City of Española has not had an online live stream of City Council meetings since December of 2023. The official reason given for the ending of the live stream is that there was a security breach during one of the streams, however at our recent Special City Council Meeting on May 8th 2024 some of my fellow councilors and the Mayor defended the decision from the idea that it has supposedly brought decorum to the meetings. A criticism laid at transparency efforts across the board is that supposedly more exposure to the public has made our politics more extreme and more performative. While it is true that we have certainly seen an uptick in those behaviors, laying the blame solely at the ability to more actively engage in our government seems misguided.

It also ignores the benefits transparency has brought to the table. It has never been easier for people from outside the government to hold us accountable. In this age where the local press is struggling to survive, mechanisms for independent activist groups, government watchdogs, and ordinary everyday citizens are more important than ever in making sure we are doing our job correctly. An archive of our meetings makes sure our minutes are accurate and that what we say is properly examined and fact checked.

Northern New Mexico unfortunately has a long history of government corruption, it is understandable why many members of the public do not trust us. It does not help to rebuild that trust by rolling back transparency efforts. A major criticism of our city is the lack of communication with the public and the press. Lack of communication is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, rumors, and distrust. Many of the criticisms laid at the city could easily be solved with more access.

Last night I did receive criticism from one of my fellow councilors that it is up to us to hold each other accountable, while I can agree with the sentiment of that statement we will not be the governing body forever. We cannot assume our successors will be good people. Checks and balances are not personal, it is not to assume that the people currently occupying our offices will act poorly but that these positions do not exist in a specific period of time.

We shouldn’t change policy just because a couple people we may have disagreements with may use it in a way that may make us feel uncomfortable. Just as we shouldn’t relax checks and balances on ourselves just because we feel the people who currently have a seat at the table are trustworthy. When we craft policy we must make the assumption that the worst could happen and that there are mechanisms in place to prevent it.

Here are some alternative methods of creating a secondary stream aside from KDCE if the Youtube stream cannot be brought back.

• Allow the public to access the meeting via Zoom. We already have Zoom access for council members and members of the press. Expand that to the public.
• Release the audio recordings on Zoom for public consumption. It was revealed at one of our city council meetings that our meetings have been recorded for sometime to assist with drafting of minutes. Why not upload that to our website? When I was on the Arizona Board of Barbering and Cosmetology that is what we did. It is a common way to provide an archive.
• Use Facebook as an alternative to Youtube. We already livestream special events on our Facebook, during COVID we used facebook to broadcast meetings. Why couldn’t we go back?
• Contact Google and solve the security issue. It has been almost half a year, I don’t see how this can’t be solved fairly quickly.

Anything is better than rolling back the progress we made in transparency. Going backwards benefits no one and only opens us up to more problems.