Moreno Valley could join the ranks of CNN, Major League Baseball and professional wrestling.

City officials have proposed that Moreno Valley put out an annual videotape of highlights of City Council meetings, important city events and festivities, such as the Fourth of July parade.

"It could be a year in review type of thing," Mayor Richard Stewart said. Council meetings "could be condensed into one year."

But unlike the $19.95 or similar amount charged for highlight tapes, residents could view the tapes at no cost because they are considered unofficial public records.

The proposal isn't cheap, and some council members question the whole idea.

The audiovisual digest is one of several options the council will consider Tuesday, concerning what to do with more than 700 videotapes of City Council meetings, said Media and Communications Administrator Angela Rushen.

City officials want to get rid of the videotapes, saying they are rarely, if ever, used. And officials say they take up too much space in the cramped production office at the rear of the council chambers at City Hall. Under city ordinances, officials can dispose of the tapes after 90 days.

Other options include storing them up to one year and recording the tapes onto a compact disc.

Some residents say the videotapes will give future generations a glimpse of how and why certain decisions were made.

Moreno Valley resident John Hayes said the videotapes are crucial in telling Moreno Valley's story. The tapes "are the history of the city," he said.

Hayes said storing the tapes shouldn't be a problem. The historical society had offered to keep them.

Councilman Charles White said the tapes should be disposed of after 90 days or even after storing them for one year as Stewart had proposed. White said the city's official record of council meetings is the action minutes, and the city already audiotapes every council meeting.

"I don't know that the video records need to be here," White said. "We have the legal record (the meeting minutes)."

But if the city decides to keep certain tapes or make highlight tapes, it's also a matter of how long the tapes can last. City officials say videotapes start to deteriorate after about 10 years.

City officials had explored converting each of the 700 tapes into a compact-disc format, which would last up to 100 years.

But that option may be too costly.

After consulting with four DVD vendors, the lowest price to convert a four-hour, full-screen, full-motion City Council meeting is about $20 per minute or $4,800 per tape. City officials estimate the cost to convert the 700 copies at $3.4 million.

Converting the tapes to another, less-sophisticated format, which has a smaller image and fewer frames, isn't much cheaper, costing $2,000 to $6,000 per tape.

If city technicians convert the tapes, the cost would be less, but still nearly $100,000.

Mayor Pro Tem Bonnie Flickinger said the city might be able to save money by converting the tapes into a disc format and use high school or college students to do the work. Flickinger revised her original proposal to preserve all the tapes.

So city officials propose that a highlight tape be made for each year. Copies of the highlight tapes would be provided to each council member and one kept for archiving. Also, one tape would kept to convert to DVD format at the earliest opportunity.

Joe Gutierrez can be reached by e-mail at jgutierrez@pe.com or by phone at (909) 656-3339.

Published 4/8/2000