City message needs to be crystal clear

The Daily Pilot published an interesting article that included my

comments at the last Costa Mesa City Council meeting regarding the

use of a city announcement on cable TV to note a plan to recycle used

tires (“Spanish ad draws Costa Mesa resident’s ire,” Oct. 10). The

announcement in question was one of several dozen that are used to

display program schedules, special events, city meetings and other

city information of interest to the residents of Costa Mesa. These

are rotated on the Channel 74 TV screen and seem to be presented for

15 to 30 seconds each, depending on the amount of information being

displayed.

Because I am interested in our local government and pay attention

to city issues, I often view this information that is used as fill-in

when there is not a meeting or special program being broadcast.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed for the first time a graphic that

was entirely in Spanish on the city station. I was surprised to see

this, as it was the first time in the past many years that a city

message was broadcast in a foreign language.

To attempt to put this in context, my surprise would be similar if

tomorrow I opened the Pilot and found some articles in Gaelic because

some of your readers have Irish ancestry. This situation might prompt

me to call Editor Tony Dodero and ask if there was a change of policy

regarding the language used to communicate with your readers.

I went to speak to the City Council about the need to add their

public study sessions to the cable broadcast schedule. At the end of

my public comment time I also asked about the foreign language

graphic announcement and asked if it was a new policy, and if so who

authorized the change. Neither the members of the City Council nor

the city manager knew anything about it, so it must have been a

decision made at a lower level.

I feel that it’s important to note that I my words were misquoted

in the article. I didn’t say I was “shocked” to see the message in

Spanish; I said, “I was surprised.” Councilwoman Libby Cowan then

reacted from the dais that she “was surprised that I was surprised.”

Just to put a fine point on this, I would like to say that I would

have been shocked if Cowan agreed with me, but I wasn’t surprised at

her reaction.

The real focus of my yet-to-be-answered question is the current

city policy for the dissemination of public information on the cable

TV station. If the city is planning to broadcast all their messages

in more than one language it might become very cumbersome with the

large number of messages and menus that are currently presented.

If the city manager or council believe it is important to put our

public information in one or more foreign languages, then do we want

to be selective or extend this to all our city publications? Do we

need to translate the city meetings into other languages and should

the staff reports be duplicated in other languages? Should the city

Web pages be offered in languages other than English?

Or should we want to use a targeted approach and only use Spanish

for certain messages? For example, as we have it today, put the used

tire recycling advertisement in Spanish but not the “Save Water,” the

upcoming “golf tournament,” Mayor’s Award or “Plant a Tree”

announcements?

This sounds like it could get very complicated, especially for

people that want to be politically correct. I can imagine the

questions a selective approach would create. There would always be

someone wondering why some announcements are not translated. For

example, does the fact that you only speak Spanish somehow preclude

your interest in the golf tournament, or the participation on a city

committee or city-sponsored entertainment event?

Anyway, we need to know what the city plans to do about using

foreign languages for the many sources of public information it

provides for its citizens. I am afraid if we start the regular use of

other languages, we will make it much more difficult for the majority

of our residents to stay informed and current with city issues. This

should be the last thing we want to do.

If we use Cowan’s utopian concept of putting out all city

information in as many languages as possible, as she seemed to

suggest in her terse public reaction to my question, it may become a

very expensive and complicated venture.

PAUL BUNNEY

Westside