By Lookout Staff

October11, 2010 -- A staple of election season for two decades, CityTV's candidate and issues forums are now on the airwaves and internet as part of the station's “Vote 2010” line-up of Santa Monica election programming.

The forums -- which include candidate statements, interviews and debates on measures -- cover the City Council race, School Board, Rent Control Board and two Ballot Measures. All of the CityTV’s election programming is produced in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica Education Fund and the Center for Governmental Studies.

“We’ve worked hard to make it easy for voters to learn about the candidates and their stands on the issues in this election”, says League of Women Voters of Santa Monica President Joanne Leavitt.

“We have many ways for voters to access the information including on CityTV cable channel 16, 24/7 election programming on cable channel 77, www.smvote.org and Time Warner Video on Demand,” Leavitt said.

“CityTV is well known for its quality election programming”, said Tracy Westen, Vice-Chairman and CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies, “Our research has shown that they do the best programming in the country. Santa Monica voters are lucky to have such a great resource available to them 24/7 until Election Day.”

CityTV has also launched www.smvote.org as a centralized resource for Santa Monica election information. The web site provides candidate statements, videos, CityTV election program schedules, an election events calendar and useful election links.

Scheduled election programming is shown on cable channel 16. A rotation of election programs airs 24 hours per day, 7 days per week on cable channel 77. In addition, videos are available on the web at www.smvote.org. And, election videos will be available for free on Time Warner’s OnDemand system.

CityTV -- the government community cable channel for the City of Santa Monica -- has won several L.A.-area Emmy awards and has regularly been chosen “Best Government Channel” by SCAN NATOA.

Information and schedules for CityTV channel 16, the flagship channel, and CityTV2 channel 20 and Forte channel 99, can be found online at www.citytv.org.