Lower Valley Matters

By: Mike Fong and Laura Solis, Lower Valley Matters

October 21, 2026

Beginning next year, Granger residents’ only option to keep up with public discussions between the Mayor and Council may be to go down to City Hall on Tuesday evenings, twice a month. According to Councilmember Israel Bustamante, Mayor Hilda González is proposing cutting the city’s contract with Mid-Valley Television for livestreaming video services from the 2027 budget as a cost-saving measure. Councilmember Bustamante confirmed that the issue was discussed during the city council’s two-day budget retreat on October 13 and 14. Lower Valley Matters has not been able to independently confirm the nature of this discussion because the city has not made either of these meetings available via livestream or online. We have filed a Public Disclosure Request for the audio recording of the meeting and awaiting a response from the city.

Councilmember Bustamante explained that the Mayor proposed the cut due to increased cost for video services driven in part by new federal guidelines requiring closed captioning for online meetings. Lower Valley Matters has not been able to independently verify the cost of the service or closed captioning, but Councilmember Bustamante asserts the annual cost savings for ending the contract for streaming services is $2,000 and there would be a one-time cost of $9,000 to enable closed captioning for archived videos of past meetings online. “My thoughts on that issue is that $2,000 cost savings is not significant enough to outweigh having the meetings more accessible to the public via live broadcast and easily available online after the fact in case the public would like to watch a previous meeting,” said Bustamante. For context, Granger’s total city budget hovers around $6M a year of which roughly $2.4M is for general government services like fire, police and administration while about $3.6M constitute enterprise funds dedicated to primarily water, sewer and garbage utilities.

Reportedly, councilmembers raised the possibility of using a more affordable alternative such as Zoom, but according to Bustamante, the Mayor and city staff “said that would still have to meet close captioning requirements and we don’t need to offer it so we don’t want to do that either.”  Currently, Mid-Valley television serves Granger, Wapato and Mabton with digital and cable access.

Absent additional options, it would appear the current proposal being considered would leave Granger residents and others with no way to view meetings outside of attending in person. Advocates for transparency such as the Washington Coalition for Open Government have supported legislation in Olympia to require city councils to make their meetings fully open to the public online at all times. While such legislation has not been approved, and livestream or online video archiving are not legally required, the coalition believes that digital access helps uphold the spirit of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).

Lower Valley Matters reached out to Mayor Gonzalez and Councilmembers Susie Munoz, Juan Isiordia and Alfredo Reyes, but as of this afternoon, nobody has responded.  

We will update this post when we have more information.

This is a developing story.