Camera lights off for City Council worksessions

The dollar savings is small, slightly more than $200 per worksession, according to a staff estimate.

More significantly, Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann said, is time savings. With no camera audience, she expects to eliminate political grandstanding, something she said started when the city began televising the sessions several years ago.

‘‘The minute we began to televise the meetings, they got longer and people were more formal,” Hoffmann said, ‘‘but it didn’t necessarily mean we were seeing a better result.”

City Council meetings are regularly televised on The Rockville Channel, cable channel 11, but the city only began televising the worksessions under the administration of Mayor Larry Giammo.

Giammo sharply criticized the decision to turn off the cameras.

‘‘The council decided to stop televising some meetings because the council can’t control themselves in terms of grandstanding,” Giammo said. ‘‘That’s absurd.”

In response, Hoffmann defended the new process, saying residents and the press can attend the open worksessions.

‘‘If I thought we’d get better government by having them televised, I’d be persuaded,” she said.

Action taken at worksessions is as binding as business conducted at regular meetings. Typically, worksessions focus on a topic and include detailed staff reports and council direction on issues.

Since worksessions are essentially the same as regular meetings, the issue is who decides what gets televised, Giammo said.

Early in his administration, the city also began televising Planning Commission, Historic District Commission and Board of Appeals meetings.

‘‘We wanted the proceedings of city government as transparent as possible, but also make it as easy for folks at home to be informed as they can be,” Giammo said.