Community Video Report (Summer 1973)

By Grady Watts Washington, D.C. has a particularly ineffectual city government, due to its lack of any real political power and the resultant umbilical connection to Congress and the White House. Despite the fundamental weakness of the local government structure, which must and is being dealt with, we assume that it is still here to govern, to provide services, to perform the usual functions of a local government. We began a few years ago to think about how video could be used to improve the performance of local government in delivering services to the people. The model which we have formulated rests on the notion of direct accountability of government officials to the people of the city. Since there are no elections to perform this function, local citizens are now left with almost no way to monitor official performance and to get action when this performance is inadequate. The model includes several components. Video is used to present to the government conditions which need to be improved, to record the local officials’ verbal response to this evidence, and later, their actual action, if any is taken. Edited versions of these tapes can periodically: be shown to local community people to inform them of the relationship between the officials’ commitments and their action---or inaction, as the case may be. Working with community leaders in both the production of the communtiy tapes and the response to the government officials, a feedback process can be developed that has that has the potential for making local government officials accountable to the community. This was essentially the model utilized by Philip Braudy, who started Project Accountability in the Anacostia neighborhood last year with an Office of Education grant. The tapes produced by that project, listed in the WCVC_ Tapelog, were also aired on broadcast television. The process is described in detail elsewhere in the newsletter. In May 1973 WCVC began another similar exercise in governmental accountability using video in northwest Washington---an area which is so severely neglected by the authorities since the rebellion in 1968 that local residents cannot help but feel that the neglect is punishment. The area---bounded by Georgia Avenue on the east, Spring Road on the north, I7th Street, Columbia Road and 18th on the West, and Florida Avenue on the South ---centers on what is known as the 14th Street corridor. A special city-wide task force from all the local agencies was em &% PANASONIG powered by the Mayor to focus on the area---to try to coordinate efforts to cleam up the area and make it liveable. Heading the effort is Jim Alexander, director of the Department of Environmental Services, who was responsible for bringing in the video component to the task force, as well as pushing the original task force idea. Initially we committed the Center to monitor the Task Force’s activities for the remainder of its 6-week experimental run. We began by making short (less than I5 minutes) unedited video reports from the community to show weekly to the special Task Force, focusing on specific responsibilities that the officials have. The tapes have run the gamut of environmental problems that decaying inner citiés encounter: garbage-strewn streets, alleys, and properties, rats, packs of dogs, abandoned, dilapidated housing and cars, and the general deterioration of neighborhoods which have experienced a retreat of investment and development by both private and public groups. Before the video component was added to the Task Force effort, weekly reports were verbal. Our first videotape made a member remark that his rather glowing report about the area in question would have to be amended. Thus, the immediate imapct was to remove the discrepancy of some officials report by confronting them with evidence of the real situation. We also taped the Task Force meeting themselves, which, , according to Alexander, had aprofound impact on the inter-personal relations. People began showing more cooperation and less bureaucratic defensiveness. We have yet to see these small successes of process translate into any major improvements on the streets. However, with community leaders like Dick Jones of Central Cardoza Concerned Citizens and Ed Jackson of the Adams Morgan Organization Environmental Committee we hope to develop more community support and impact on the task force’s work. The original idea of the Task Force was extended indefinitely after the Mayor saw a video report of the project, which means that we have finished the experimental stage. We are now engaged in negotiating with the appropriate agencies to set up a longer term community monitoring process using video. Hopefully, by the next newsletter we will be able to announce a more detailed plan for making local government more accountable. We are also pursuing the possibilities of preparing some of the material for local TV stations.