While most of Orange County’s cities and school districts have transitioned to video streaming their meetings in recent years, a good chunk of local water districts still do not, keeping nearly 400,000 ratepayers in the dark.
Along with the two cities of La Palma and Rancho Santa Margarita in OC, there are five water districts that do not provide a video or audio livestream of their meetings, including the Moulton Niguel Water District, Mesa Water District, East Orange County Water District, Laguna Beach County Water District and Emerald Bay Service District.
These water agencies range in size from fairly large, like Moulton Niguel with over 170,000 ratepayers, to small, like Emerald Bay Services District with 2,000.
Video streaming governing board meetings – allowing residents to track government meetings from home – has increasingly become the norm in California.
Yet there are holdouts, prompting Sacramento legislators like State Senator Maria Elena Durazo – who chairs the California State Senate’s Local Government Committee – to spearhead legislation – SB 707 – mandating video streaming at the local level. The next hearing for Durazo’s bill is at the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.
Durazo’s bill would require video livestreaming at local city council meetings and county supervisor meetings.
[Read: Santana: Defending Your Right to Watchdog Local Government From Home]
“Recently we made amendments to SB 707, so all city councils and county boards of supervisors have to provide a two-way option for the public to participate from, which can be audiovisual or telephonic, but telephonic services do not also have to video stream meetings,” Senator Durazo wrote in an email to Voice of OC.
“While there are many other types of local agencies, including special districts and school districts, that we hope find ways to encourage public participation, we decided to start with placing additional requirements on city councils and county boards of supervisors.”
Steven Choi, Orange County’s senator representing district 37, which includes the area served by the Mesa Water District, also serves as vice chair on the Local Government Committee.
Most OC water districts allow the public to watch them from home.
Eight districts —including El Toro Water District, Irvine Ranch Water District, Municipal Water District of Orange County, Orange County Water District, Santa Margarita Water District, Serrano Water District, South Coast Water District and Yorba Linda Water District — provide a video livestream of their board meetings.
The local hold out water agencies vary in size and scope.
The Moulton Niguel Water District, which serves over 170,000 residents in South County, is the largest district that does not allow ratepayers to watch them on video.
The Mesa Water District, which serves 110,000 residents mainly in Costa Mesa, and the East Orange County Water District, which serves around 100,000, both do not offer a video livestream of their meetings.
The Laguna Beach County Water District, which provides water to approximately 25,000 individuals, and the Emerald Bay Service District, which provides water to around 2,000 residents around Laguna Beach, both do not provide a video livestream.
The Trabuco Canyon Water District – which serves over 13,000 residents in Orange County’s canyons – only provides an audio livestream of their meetings on Zoom.
Across the county, public officials are increasingly opting to allow the public to view them from home.
Chapman University students have investigated online access to public meetings across cities, school districts and other public agencies in partnership with Voice of OC since the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020 when the public was unable to participate in-person.
Currently, a total of 32 cities in Orange County – excluding La Palma and Rancho Santa Margarita, the majority of school districts, half of community college districts and the county’s transportation agency video livestream their meetings.
Following years of student reporting on the issue, the City of Laguna Woods moved to offer a video livestream of their city council meetings in February 2024.
The Orange County Transportation Agency followed suit in December 2024 after an investigation in collaboration with Chapman University students gave the agency a failing transparency grade and months of reporting by Voice of OC on OCTA video livestreaming.
[Read: OC’s Transportation Agency Begins Video Streaming Public Meetings]
Last month, the Garden Grove Unified School District moved to livestream their meetings – joining the majority of school districts in allowing the public to participate remotely.
[Read: Garden Grove Unified Starts Livestreaming School Board Meetings]
[Read: How Easy is it to Tune Into Your School Board Meeting?]
Mesa Water District is the most recent water district to discuss video livestreaming, but pushed to delay their decision on video livestreaming meetings for a second time at their March 26 board meeting.
“I suggest to be good stewards of the ratepayers money that we wait for the governor’s decision before making investments,” said Director James Fisler at the March 26 board meeting, arguing that investments made pre-empting the legislation might waste money if it doesn’t meet criteria.
Per the Mesa Water board’s own policies, they could wait up to a year to discuss video livestreaming again.
[Read: Mesa Water Officials Consider Video Streaming Meetings]
Director Fisler noted that in-person engagement at the district has been sporadic over the last 15 years, and has been regarding water use rather than engineering or financial discussions.
“They seem to trust us in everything we do otherwise, because they’re not here complaining, and they re-elect us. So I think they like us,” said Director Fisler.
With a budget of over $38 million dollars, Mesa Water spends about $1.9 million on public affairs – increasing each year by around $50,000 since 2017.
In prior years, the Mesa Water District drew scrutiny after allocating nearly $300,000 on a branding campaign, including a trademark.
While Mesa Water officials may not be moving forward on video streaming any time soon, Board President Marice DePasquale recently called out another rising trend around remote meetings — elected officials dialing in to public meetings — that has drawn notice by state lawmakers and First Amendment groups.
“As someone who, in my day job, attends a tremendous number of public hearings, an alarming trend is that the people that sit on the dais are the ones dialing in,” said President DePasquale at the March 26 meeting.
“And that is a travesty when you have a chamber full of people there to do business with the entity and the meeting is being run remotely, so I think it’s a little bit of a slippery slope.”
During that meeting, Director Jim Atkinson called into the meeting remotely using Zoom due to being sick.
DePasquale isn’t alone in calling out elected officials phoning it in.
Others like the First Amendment Coalition are also concerned about public officials calling in to meetings remotely.
“First Amendment Coalition supports opportunities for the public to be able to observe or participate remotely in governing board meetings or Brown Act meetings,” said David Loy, Legal Director with the nonpartisan nonprofit supporting a free press and the public’s right to information.
“But we have strong concerns if members of the governing board itself, or members of the Brown Act body itself, are not physically present because we believe that face to face presence is essential to accountability and transparency.”
Erika Taylor is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow and photojournalist. You can find her on Instagram @camerakeepsrolling or email at etaylor@voiceofoc.org