Sep 25 2008

Dear Mayor and Council Members:

Your immediate and official action is urgently needed to prevent the closure and permanent loss of the public cable channels and production facilities currently serving thousands of your constituents throughout the City of Los Angeles. Programming produced by Los Angeles public access volunteers address many topics, in many languages, and truly represent the wonderful diversity of our great City. Please do not silence these voices!

The public access cable channels in Los Angeles are to be shut down at the end of December. Time Warner Cable has opted to pay a 2% Cable Franchise fee to the City of Los Angeles in lieu of providing studios and public access channels. The channels, facilities, and training personnel have been provided to our community by the cable industry for more than 20 years.  In 1984, the Federal Communication Commission created Public, Education and Government Channels (PEG) so that all voices could be heard and to assure that our local Government did not dominate and manipulate the field of public discourse. Public access encourages alternative views and is a powerful forum to express critical issues, inviting all residents to discuss, and debate. Such discourse is the fundamental tenet of our democracy.

Over the past twenty years the cable companies, in cooperation with our City government, provided public access channels and studios.  These facilities and services are vital “public assets”.  We would not think of permitting large-scale development without accompanying parks and other infrastructure to serve urban public needs. How can we have Citywide cable systems and education and government cable television channels and facilities but no such facilities set aside for the public to use? This would be a step backward in sound municipal planning. I urge you take action immediately to prevent the channels from going dark in two short months at the end of December 2008.

A proposed plan, by the City, to relegate Public Access content to a government controlled educational channel would appear to violate the spirit of the FCC mandated separate PEG channel designations, intended to give the people a voice, uncensored by government. Public Access channels around the country provide the mechanism for people to address governmental behavior and policies as guaranteed by our Constitution. To end this practice in Los Angeles, the media capital of the world, would bring a negative cast to our City’s positive image of international diversity and artistic free expression.

I urge you to act swiftly so to prevent the public channels and production facilities from being taken away from the City and used by Time Warner for commercial purposes. Such a re-deployment of these vital public resources would add insult to injury and further alienate thousand s of concerned constituents. Thank you for your consideration. Please respond to me with your intentions.