JoAnn Watson

[jj84]

Of course, it's all about keeping your mug in front of public and getting re-elected. That said, I think the broadcasts are a valuable tool for interested residents to see the council in action. I favor finding a better, more economical way to preserve the broadcasts, and not eliminating them completely.

IIRC correctly, the public broadcast channels had a large part of their budgets paid for by Barden, now Comcast as part of their contract to serve the city with cable. If that's still true, they should look to those funds to pay for the council broadcasts.

They do -- just look at the Franchise Fee on your cable bill. There was some changes when AT&T lobbied the state a few years back when they were launching Uvers. However now that times are tough in many cities those franchise fees have been going to General Fund accounts to help patch holes. That's probably why there was 7 people working -- the money was earmarked in accounting for the Cable TV Dept and was taking in a bunch of money -- they needed to spend it and what better way than to hire your friends and neighbors.

In a lot of communites that gave/give discounts on cable to Seniors the funds came from these franchise fees [[bet you didn't know you were subsidizing your neighbors cable) then the city would right a check back to cable company for that discount from these accounts.