LAKE COUNTY – When funding for local public access television cable systems was required by the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, many envisioned a “global village” connecting communities throughout the world.
That dream has been realized in many communities across the country, where training and access to media technology have created a corps of students and volunteers producing programs on local issues and interests.
National interest in public access channels heated up recently when Comcast's Michigan operation announced it would move the public access channels to the digital spectrum, and tried to give every analog-only customer in the state a free digital set-top box for one year to ensure that public, educational and governmental (PEG) channels would be viewable on analog TV sets.
Local governments rebelled, complained to House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and finally got a federal judge to enjoin Comcast from proceeding.
Lake County's public access channel, Channel 8 on the Mediacom service, was created in 2001 by a city of Clearlake ordinance. It has never been funded with any steady source of income, and has been hampered by a lack of staff, as well as by a frequently-changing roster of staff and committee members.
When Channel 8 got started, Mediacom, which has held the county's exclusive cable franchises since 1998, contributed $30,000 to buy equipment.
Mediacom manager Shawn Swatosh said the choice of equipment was at the discretion of the PEG committee, but he believed they had bought personal computers and video recording equipment for producing programs.
Channel 8 at the time was housed on the Clearlake campus of Yuba College, but has since moved to a Clearlake city office shared with the permits department.
No one is sure today exactly what equipment Channel 8 has. Committee members said they have asked for inventories, but have not received them. A request for an inventory was on the agenda for the PEG Committee's Wednesday at Clearlake City Hall.
Channel 8 runs live Tuesday meetings of the county Board of Supervisors, with repeats on Sunday morning. Other regular programming includes Yuba College classes, a bulletin board for nonprofit groups and occasional locally-produced shows. It also has an online schedule at www.laketv8.com.
The Web site has a form for submitting events and a notice that the DVD hardware has problems, which means they haven't been accepting new submissions.
On Monday and Tuesday of last week, the station was showing a new video call screen, apparently an on-site application for making conference calls or allowing live broadcast.
The part-time manager is Jack Barker, who works four hours a week, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays, updating the bulletin board, maintaining equipment and scheduling submitted material.
Lake County's Public-Education-Government (PEG) channel (Channel 8 on Mediacom) now will be administered by a new Joint Powers Authority (JPA) signed by the county and Clearlake.
Current JPA board members, responsible for allocating money to Channel 8's PEG board, are Ed Robey, District 1 County Supervisor and current chairman of the Board of Supervisors; Joyce Overton, Clearlake City Council; and Shawn Swatosh, Mediacom manager for Lake County. They must appoint two new public members to the JPA board.
Bob Malley, a longtime Clearlake City Council member, former mayor, and a former member of the PEG committee, was an early applicant for one of the public seats on the JPA.
“The old city advisory committee will simply cease to exist, and be replaced by the new JPA advisory committee,” said Robey.
He added, the question is whether the new JPA board will have an advisory committee: “It seems to me that we should have an advisory committee, with five or seven members, and invite anyone who is interested to apply.”
Current PEG committee members besides Robey, Overton and Swatosh are Byron Bell, dean of the Yuba College Clearlake campus; Barbara Christwitz, a tutoring center specialist at Yuba College; Hiram J. Dukes, video producer at California Oakey Productions in Cobb; and Dante d'Amicis, an occasional producer. Another member, appointed by the Konocti Unified School District, has never attended meetings. Minutes of the committee meetings indicate Bell intends to resign. A city ordinance establishes a seven-member committee.
For 2007, the county collected fees of $281,264.30 on Mediacom's total revenues of $5,625,285.91. Their contribution to the Channel 8 budget for 2007-08 is scheduled at $2,000, to cover the costs of broadcasting meetings of the board of supervisors.
Swatosh said the county has a total of 12,000 to 14,000 subscribers, and has continued to pay franchise fees to Lakeport despite the city's expired franchise. Lakeport City Manager Jerry Gilham said those fees amount to about $40,000 a year. Clearlake City Manager Dale Neiman said that city receives $120,000 a year from franchise fees.
The city of Clearlake reports that the 2007-08 budget for Channel 8 totals $11,400 in income, which includes $5,400 from Yuba College, and $2,000 each from the cities of Lakeport and Clearlake and Lake County. The beginning fund balance is $1,879.
Expenses are given as $13,261, including $5,661 for salary and benefits for the part-time station manager.
Gillham came here from Gresham, Oregon, where PEG Channel 21 is part of MetroEast Community Media, which serves approximately 180,000 households in Portland and the East Metro communities of Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview, Wood Village and unincorporated Multnomah County East.
He calls himself “a big proponent of public TV” and said recently he's not sure why Lakeport's City Council opted out of the new Joint Powers Authority formed by Lake County and the city of Clearlake: “I've only been here 7 months.”
Gillham said he believes Lakeport Council members “didn't feel confident the city would actually receive a benefit of equal magnitude to other two members,” the city of Clearlake and Lake County.
The JPA contract stipulated each member would pay one-third of the Channel 8 operating expenses. Gillham said Lakeport officials felt that was too vague and open-ended and “we're $1 million shy in the general fund now.”
He added he believes the city would support the concept of public access.
Dale Neiman, Clearlake's city administrator since February 2007, said he has been through the franchise process twice
.In 1986-87,while he was city manager in Fortuna, with a population of 11,000, the process involved five cooperating cities.
“We hired a franchise consultant, which really helped,” he said.
The process involved getting rate approvals and control of the channel lineup, Neiman said.
Tomorrow: Experts explain challenges of new franchise laws.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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