CIty Government

No quorum, no meeting last night. The meeting may be rescheduled for July 22, 2008 stay tuned for more fun and frolics. I hope you can join us.

There was no meeting but we did converse while waiting for no show members.

One topic of conversation centered around the City Manager's request of his Cable Advisory committee to recommend how he should allocate the capital grant portion of the cable franchise license to the PEG channels ( 11, 12 and WCCA TV 13).

The conversation got a little testy after WCCA asked why the process of deciding what to recommend to is taking so long, when between the school and city accounts there appears to be a remaining balance exceeding $1.8 million dollars of unencumbered un-used cable franchise money ( as of June 2008). We believe that amount may be more than enough to satisfy the capital needs of all three PEG channels plus finance the attorney for the next renewal .The question seemed to be received with much resentment from the city's director of the government channel, who is also the head of the city's cable division, recording secretary for the cable advisory committee and city administration's liaison to the committee , who also seems to have a lot of clout with the group ( we're not sure how that is not a conflict of interest, but we already fought and lost that one ). The meeting quickly ended, but not before the Committee Chair said he would look into the Government and WPS channel account through the city auditor's department. The representatives from the WPS did not seem to know about the over $ 600,000 balance they had, which I found interesting.

Remember though, this wasn't an official meeting, there was no quorum.

For the last couple of months while we attended the one other cable advisory meeting held, we are told that the capital grant has to be split between the three PEG channels, and we were left with the impression that it was unlikely WCCA's would receive the full amount of capital it needs to meet current equipment needs. In addition we were led to understand that the city may take funds, of the top, to pay for an attorney for the next renewal. Last night,the government channel, the school channel, and WCCA TV13, all informed the committee members in attendance of what each respective channel's equipment capital needs were. WCCA needs to have nearly every single piece of equipment replaced with digital technology. All three PEG channels, combined, need about a bit less than about $ 700,000 Capital funds for the next five years. Not really far from the level capital funds received in 1997.

We hope to avoid any injustice in the process. In the recent past, WCCA has contributed surveys, comprehensive assessments, focus group results, a survey produced by Nancy Richard a member of the Alliance for Community Media, which indicated best practices, franchise rev's, PEG staff assignments, throughout the nation , with intention to help the city's cable and telecommunication strategy. We also pointed to the folks who pioneered this industry and set the standard, to the best of public access centers, and municipal franchise best practices, including third party consulting reports and all the rest of it. More importantly hundreds of people wrote, sent letters, editorials, petitioned, or came to public hearings in support of WCCA, but none of it appears to be enough as far as we can tell ( contrary to the purpose of an ascertainment process). We couldn't find much of it included in the Cable Advisory ascertainment report by the way either.

This however, still raises concerns. TV is the most important medium on the face of the earth.For the past 22 years WCCA, it's staff and volunteers, has and continues to be dedicated to serving the people of this city, as we provide a cutting edge technological resource to empower citizens, so everyone can share in the free flow of information at level unmatched on TV or anywhere else. Public Access is and should be one of the center pieces of municipal telecommunication and cable strategic plans.

When I hear stories of how some cities go out of their way to encourage and support their public access centers, to ensure and be inclusive of Public Access, accepting and fighting to secure the added value and vital role Public Access plays in their community, how do you think it makes us feel in the midst of our experience of Worcester's cable franchise process?

Look through this website, anything you need to know about public access can be found here or through various links throughout it's content.This is not reinventing the wheel.

The city council passed a motion asking the city manager to sign a contract with WCCA by the end of June. Perhaps by the next August Council meeting we have more news to share.

WCCA TV Soapbox will be shooting early this month due to the Christmas and New Year Holidays.

I welcome your questions for the City Manager or Mayor for December 17th, Monday's shoot.

Please enter your question as a comment below.

Thank you

WCCA TV is offering space for candidates to debate.

If you are a candidate for City Council and wish to debate your opponent please let us know if you are interested.

There will most likely be a number of Candidate Forums presented on WCCA TV. However this is different. This is a call for those who wish to debate live on WCCA TV 13.

Here is how is going to happen:

We're keeping it simple:
1.WCCA will be collecting topics of interest from our members, and our cable and web viewers.
Pursuant to candidate response, WCCA will announce the allotted time for each debate episode.

2.The debate(s) will take place live at WCCA TV 13

3.Date for this event will be announced by WCCA TV

4. More than one candidate running for the same office can debate at once.

Candidates if interested to debate submit the following information to Mauro DePasquale, Executive Director
WCCA TV 13
415 Main St, Worcester, MA 01608
mauro@wccatv.org :
Name, Address, Phone, Cell Phone, work phone, email, Seat you are running for