This is an updated version of an opinion previously posted on hmbreview.com
 
This week’s issue of the Half Moon Bay Review contained a “news” story by recently-hired reporter Mark Noack that described the April 30 Assembly Local Government Committee hearing on AB 1991—a bill that seeks to exempt the 129-house Beachwood/Glencree development from having to comply with our state’s environmental laws.
 
The proposed bill is part of a sweetheart deal that the Half Moon Bay City Council is attempting to consummate for wealthy developer Charles “Chop” Keenan. To date, the City Council has failed to address a number of questions about this deal. The issues extend beyond Half Moon Bay to all of California.
 
I don’t wish to pick on Noack, but the Review’s story on the AB 1991 hearing was less than objective, to put it mildly. I would go so far as to say it was unprofessional---but that would elevate the story to being viewed as an actual piece of journalism, which it clearly is not.

Candidates nominated by the board of MCTV soundly defeated the challengers, Barry Parr, Darin Boville, and Scott Boyd.

I’m not entirely sure how to report this, since I was running in this race.  Speaking only for myself, I was always running with the goal of improving MCTV and not against any particular members or nominees of the board. So, I’m happy to congratulate MCTV’s new board members and wish them well as they take the station into the digital age. I still have a lot of ideas for improving the station and its service to the community, but I’ll save that for another time.

Candidate, votes

Jack Prejza, 62 (elected)
Chris Madison, 60 (elected)
Whitney Brooks, 61 (elected)
Barry Parr, 25
Darin Boville, 22
Scott Boyd, 25

Resolution to amend the MCTV bylaws

Yes, 57 (passed)
No, 22

“Should a film console us with its own brilliance when it aims to discomfort us with its content?” Kenneth Baker San Francisco Chronicle

Jennifer Baichwal’s gorgeous documentary about Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and his attempt to document modern industrialization gone amuck in China and other hypergrowth hotspots.  Burtynsky is a master at finding beauty in dangerous industrial vistas. The opening tracking shot through the Chinese factory where 23,000 employees make most of the world’s iron is itself worth the admission price.

The film makes no attempt to scare the audience with statistics and charts. Instead Director Jennifer Baichwal chose to follow Burtynsky as he travels the world looking for mind blowing industrial vistas he can capture on film. Burtynsky throws in an occasional comment about his subjects, but for the most part he lets the images and the words of the people behind the images do all the talking.  It’s clear that the workers depicted in the film are profoundly grateful for the jobs that have lifted them out of poverty. At the same time they are fully cognizant and deeply concerned about the impact this rampant industrialization is having on the world they are going to pass on to their children.

Jenny Lau, an Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema at San Francisco State and a member of the Script Committee of the Beijing Olympics will introduce the film and lead the post screening discussion.

More info and a streaming clip at: www.HMBFilm.org

Copies of “A SEAL’S LIFE” are still available
The Film Society still has copies of last month’s film, A Seal’s Life, for sale on DVD at the bargain price of $15.00.  You can pick one up at this month’s screening or send a check made out to the “Coastside Film Society” to PO Box 94037-0588 and the Film Society will mail you a copy.

Fri. April 25, 2008, 7:30 pm
Methodist Sanctuary, 777 Miramontes, Half Moon Bay (corner of Johnston)
$6.00 for adults

NOTE: All candidates are always welcome to submit statements to Coastsider.

I’ve been critical of MCTV’s policies about copyright and its management for the past few weeks, but I’ve decided to do something about it.

Last Friday, shortly after I learned nominations for the board were about to close, I nominated myself, as well as Darin Boville and Scott Boyd for the three open positions on the MCTV board.

Things have been crazy over the last week preparing for this, but we’re excited to be running for the board.

I’m going to be writing more how MCTV can be improved and the election process, but for now, I’ll leave you with what we wrote for our campaign brochure. Please leave questions and comments below and we’ll be happy to address them. What would you like to see from MCTV?

Why we’re running

MCTV has accomplished a lot in 20 years, but we need to find new ways to use Channel 6 as more video moves to the Web. MCTV’s new website is a long overdue step in the right direction, but much remains to be done to bring it up to date. At the same time, MCTV needs to open Channel 6 to new programming ideas and more engagement with the Coastside community.

Barry, Scott, Darin are uniquely qualified to accomplish this mission. Individually, they have created the Coastside’s first local websites (montara.org, sanmateo.org), first government websites (MWSD, MCC), first breaking news Web site (Coastsider.com), first videos from the Devil’s Slide closure (Darin Boville), and the Coastside’s first video website (MontaraFog.com).

* Open MCTV to the community with a membership drive, fundraising, and grants to support new community projects.

* Open our schedule with more prime-time access for original programming and new video produced by Coastsiders.

* Open minds by encouraging our viewers to communicate on Channel 6 and on our website.

* Open our door to members and viewers with regular business hours, answering the phone during business hours, and public board meetings that are cablecast on Channel 6.

* Open government meetings to greater public scrutiny by allowing fair use of our videos for use by the public.

I’ve created a new website called the ”Montara Dog Blog,"The purposes of this site are:

To provide a forum for everyone who walks their dog(s) in Montara and the surrounding trails.

To create a loose association of dog owners, linked by e-mail, to share information of urgent interest, such as lost dogs, found dogs, mountain lion sightings, etc.

To create a photo gallery of Montara dogs and their owners, just for fun.

And, last but not least, to encourage responsible behavior on the part of dogs and their owners.

In addition to the blog and photo gallery, the site has a map of Montara’s popular dog walking trails, a page for free classified ads relating to dogs, and useful links to other web sites.

For more details, visit http://montaradogs.com or call Bill at 728-3946.

I made a couple of significant errors regarding MCTV in my recent postings. The errors were entirely mine, but I was working from inadequate information because MCTV had ignored my repeated requests for information. I still haven’t heard from MCTV, but I did discover these errors and wanted to correct them here and in the original stories.

My first error was to say that MCTV’s board of directors is selected by the board, and not by its members. In fact, MCTV does offer memberships and its members do get to vote on who can be on the board. However, with $20 per year membership dues and only $685 in membership revenue in fiscal 2007, MCTV may have fewer than 35 paying members.

My second error was to say that MCTV’s executive director Constance Malach is paid $45,000 for 25 hours of work per week.  My source was MCTV’s 2005 tax return, which was the most recent I had available to me at the time. I now know that in fiscal 2007, according to MCTV’s most recent tax filings, Ms. Malach’s salary was $60,970 for 25 hours per week, a 37% increase over 2006.

I didn’t learn much in business school, but I did learn that if an employee is not behaving in the best interests of the organization, it’s a pretty good bet his compensation program is structured to encourage it.

When you look at MCTV’s budget, you can begin to see why they don’t talk to the community or even listen. MCTV’s not returning my messages, so this is my personal analysis of their tax returns.

Three quarters of MCTV’s income comes from grants from the city of Half Moon Bay and from San Mateo County. The city and county get the money from cable franchise fees and pass it on to MCTV.  Coastsiders pay the franchise fee as a separate line item on their Comcast bills. But it’s not earmarked for MCTV. The city and county could choose to keep the money, or give it to someone else. With the City Council and Board of Supervisors providing three-quarters of MCTV’s revenue, MCTV’s existence depends on keeping them happy.

MCTV’s only other significant source of revenue is what they call “government grants”. This appears to be the fees that local boards pay MCTV for taping and cablecasting their meetings. But it’s unclear why MCTV is unwilling to run tapes of meetings they didn’t produce, since the income from taping doesn’t appear to be much more than the expense of volunteers, staff time, and materials. Running these tapes might free up staff time and equipment for something more interesting.

What MCTV calls “direct public support” appears to be what you and I would call advertising revenue.  And MCTV made about $4,000 on advertising in fiscal 2005.

Most startling is that less than 1% of MCTV’s revenue comes from membership dues. If MCTV had to go to the community every year meet its budget, the way that KQED must for example, you could expect them to be a lot more responsive. If the board of MCTV were elected by the members, as it is at KQED, you could expect them to listen. [CORRECTION: MCTV’s board is elected by its members.]

Darin Boville publishes Montara Fog

The current dispute over the rights to recordings of public meetings goes back a couple of years. If you click on the “Video” menu at the top of the Coastsider main page you’ll see, for me, where this issue all began.

I have a strong interest in open government (my education is in public policy) and had been heavily contributing to Coastsider since about a year after I arrived here in the Fall of 2004. Initially those contributions took the form of still photographs but they quickly evolved to more elaborate projects, such as documenting each of the speakers at the 2006 Board of Supervisors LCP update hearings and writing extensive captions quoting from each speaker. You can still see the photographs in Coastsider’s new gallery area but the captions seem to have been misplaced: http://coastsider.com/gallery/index.php?album=lcphearing2_0

Then came Barry’s March 4th, 2006 post--it is the earliest entry under the video tab, on page eleven.

That was the post where Barry reported on a newsworthy event at the HMB City Council Meeting and used a clip from MCTV’s broadcast of the meeting to inform viewers about what had happened.

MCTV’s response? Their lawyer claimed copyright on the taxpayer-funded video and demanded that Coastsider remove the footage.

This was shocking.

If a citizen wanted to see that footage they would have to find out when it was playing on Channel 6 (if they hadn’t already missed it), and sit through who-knows-how-many hours of tedious meeting footage until they reached the newsworthy portion. And what if they wished to share the clip with others? Too bad--the video is broadcast only once and MCTV doesn’t maintain an archive.

That HMB City Council footage seems to no longer exist. For all practical purposes--by trying to gauge the extent to which that footage was seen by the public--that footage might as well have never existed at all.

I know that sometimes Coastsider can be earnest enough to gag a Smurf. Take the ownership of public records, for example.

I’ve been wrestling with MCTV over the right to publish newsworthy clips from their cablecasts for a couple of years. Through property taxes and cable fees, you and I pay for their palatial offices in Comcast’s El Granada equipment closet, executive director’s $45,000 [Correction: $60,970] annual salary for 25 hours of work a week [PDF of MCTV’s 2005 IRS filing], token payments for their dedicated camera crew, equipment, and even the actual, physical videotapes they use to record the public meetings of our elected bodies.

But MCTV will tell you that they own the contents of those tapes and will not allow anyone to redistribute them. This would be a shocking theft of public property if MCTV’s crime weren’t so penny ante—like stealing pencils from the library.

Last week, Supervisor Rich Gordon weighed in on the controversy [PDF] [Click here for a PDF of MCTV’s county charter] I’ve been bugging him about it for a while, so I only have myself to blame. Sensing that he was unprepared to declare all the recordings to be public property, I asked that the county at least assert its ownership of the tapes it paid for directly—those of Midcoast Community Council meetings.  However, I was extremely disappointed that Supervisor Gordon declined. He was willing to say that boards could negotiate ownership with MCTV—but they have every reason not to.

As I told Supervisor Gordon, MCTV’s policy panders to the worst instincts of our elected officials by promising to bury their newsworthy and controversial acts in hours of tedium.  Darin Boville looked into how the rest of the county handles this, and learned that no San Mateo city that streams their meetings allows a private party to own its copyrights. MCTV’s policy is so weirdly at odds with their mission and the whole point of taping public meetings that you have to wonder about their motives. Fortunately, the Montara Water and Sanitary District and the Coastside Fire Protection District are more committed to openness than MCTV gives them credit for.

What does all this mean? If you want a copy of last week’s Midcoast Community Council meeting, you can pay MCTV $50, roughly four times what you’d pay for a copy of ”Citizen Kane“.

MCTV’s executive director Constance Malach has made a lot of noise about MCTV’s nonprofit status, continually referring to Coastsider and Montara Fog “commercial” sites. This is a red herring, because (1) MCTV makes more money from its commercial activities than Coastsider and Montara Fog combined, and (2) MCTV has not answered questions about whether it would permit noncommercial sites to redistribute these public meetings.

MCTV is a private organization—in all senses of the word. Their board is self-selected [CORRECTION: elected by a small number of members], and their meetings take place behind closed doors. MCTV has not answered my questions about what material they will accept for cablecast, how they are organized, the names of their directors, or even their price for DVD’s. 

I also asked MCTV whether it would cablecast Coastside board meetings that were created by the boards themselves. I received the following reply from Ms. Malach.

MCTV will not accept public meeting videos from third parties for regularly scheduled meetings of local agencies.  There are a large number of reasons for this that we can review with you at an appropriate time in the future.  We are aware of the sentence in the Gordon letter that you have referred to.  Upon seeing the letter, we discussed the matter with the County and we believe they now better understand the rationale behind our policy.  Our understanding is that Supervisor Gordon’s letter was not intended to ask us to change our policy, and we are not changing it.

I asked Ms. Malach to set a time, as she promised, when she could explain her reasoning. She replied, “You have my answer.” MCTV is stonewalling, because they are not accountable to the public.

I’ve tried reasoning with MCTV. I’ve tried taking my concerns to the boards themselves. And I’ve tried to talking to the Board of Supervisors. I’m convinced that the only solution is the reform of MCTV itself, but it may not be worth the trouble. More on that later.

Comcast bused in thirty or forty paid seat warmers for an FCC hearing on network neutrality at Harvard University, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Network neutrality is the doctrine that network owners (such as Comcast and AT&T) cannot discriminate against any content in favor of other content—such as content they own or have been paid to carry.

An official at Free Press, a nonprofit advocacy group that has criticized Comcast for limiting the amount of data some of its customers send over its network, accused the cable company of “stacking the deck” at the hearing with the 30 to 40 “seat-warmers.” An official at Harvard said dozens of real participants were left standing outside the auditorium with placards.

“They were taking seats away from other citizens who had a right to be there,” said Catherine Bracy, administrative manager for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. “It was a PR thing. [Comcast] wanted more people in the room who were sympathetic.”

The FCC is considering holding another hearing at Stanford.