Citizens of Lake County, are you enjoying the operation of your cable TV8 Public, Education, Government (PEG) station? The counties of Sacramento, Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, Kern, San Diego, San Francisco, Irving, LA, and several others do enjoy what is happening with their community public access channels (available though cable TV or directly through Internet computer connections). But perhaps Lake County and city governments do not really want you to see and understand such operations? Perhaps they prefer the ignorance of We The People?

Over 10 years of TV8 PEG operation, with very little if any progressive development, one must ask why a PEG station cable franchise, in the hands of the city of Clearlake (as well as the cCounty beginning with the 2007 joint powers of authority contract), is still relatively dysfunctional. Previous station mangers have quit, and the last volunteer provisional manager, Allen Markowski, was terminated, perhaps for being, in part, a bit too successful in bringing the PEG station, particularly the public access part, into some viable presence after years of what appears to be political obstruction by a city government who also apparently thinks it controls the public access content of the peg entity to the extent of demonstrating a callous disregard of constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights.

If the current TV8 PEG Board says you can’t see something (it’s “too far out”) such as a documentary, labeled disparagingly by the board as “conspiracy theory,” or any nonlocal created video (“imported” video that originates from outside Lake County but produced by a local producer), you cannot see it broadcast unless after 10 p.m., or at all, apparently, if the currently installed provisional station manager (installed with questionable due process) does not approve after reviewing before broadcasting (a fundamental violation of PEG regulations and Supreme Court law).

And too bad for those volunteers who do not follow orders, orders conveyed by a dictatorial TV8 PEG Board and city having no apparent bylaws as a normal governing board might, making communication more transparent and regulated, rather than as a dictatorship with demonstrated and assumed arrogance and control over PEG personnel, related committees, and most importantly, the viewing public for which the PEG station serves.

Yes, the board claims the “provisional policy” (shown below) was only to be tested for a month. But the TV8 Board of Directors here tampers with public access programming by restricting, if not censoring it, and secondly, it was rushed and forced into play by a bully, dictatorial TV8 PEG Board (primarily by Ed Roby, Joyce Overton, and Jeff Smith) causing Shawn Swatoch, a board member, to resign from the board due to possible legal issues involving Mediacom which he represents. He resigned due to the board’s actions related to possible violations of constitutional public access law involving the programming proposed at the Dec. 9, 2009, TV8 PEG Board meeting he attended, apparently knowing nothing about what was to transpire at that meeting.

Below is the “provisional policy” created by the TV8 Board of Directors that began a chain of events, only one of which was the TV8 PEG station lockout by Dale Neiman, who as city administrator, is the apparent “legal” station manager who also knows nothing about running a PEG station but is very good at shutting it down:

“The Board decided to ask the station management to try out the following policy for one month and report back:

Prime time (5 p.m. – 10 p.m.) will be limited to locally produced programming. Imported programs will be scheduled to run only twice, regardless of how many different people submit the program. The Board encouraged the station management to replay local programming more, including the bulletin board (which they are working on currently.)” – from the minutes of the TV8 PEG Board of Directors meeting held Dec. 9th at 7 a.m. at the El Grande Hotel.

Perhaps this policy appears innocuous and simple enough to those uninformed about PEG public access and free speech, but such is not the case, and had there been more inclusive discussion and informed input with responsible leadership, the resulting chain of events might not have occurred. But here the TV8 PEG Board of Directors apparently demanded change in the programming of prime time content with ONLY locally originated programming, as well as extending the prime time hours by two additional hours beginning from 5 p.m., rather than from 7 p.m.

But why? They want to “encourage” more local programming (as stated). That of course does not compute in this case. Local programming does not grow by extending prime time viewing hours where practically no current locally produced material is available, which results then in a blank TV screen.

If the city had any real responsible interest in the public access TV8 PEG station, they would have offered far more real support in a variety of ways over the past 10 years of its neglect: public outreach enabling more local programming, obtaining more volunteers to run the PEG station and the means to train others to do so, obtaining financial support.

Instead, the present board demanded a reduction in the broadcast of the very videos that have stirred some support and interest. In addition, at the Dec. 9 TV8 Board meeting the board apparently demanded a change of programming, a new provisional policy created with threats of Lake County withdrawing funding (mentioned by Jeff Smith ) if certain videos were “too far out.”

This kind of leadership and government manipulation is what We The People and the Lake County TV8 PEG station could do without. The attempt to reprogram prime time content, and restrict non-local videos, has nothing to do with encouraging more local programming but smacks of political subversive control over what you can see, and represents the kind of political control that has rendered the PEG station impoverished, retarded, and in the city’s dark closet for over 10 years.

Ed Robey, a TV PEG Board member, recently suggested on the local KPFZ radio station that the TV8 PEG station had lost credibility due to the lack of responsible volunteers and their unprofessional actions, pointing to the former operating PEG crew involving the then-acting manager, Allen Markowitz.

But if Ed Robey wants more responsible and professional operation of the PEG station perhaps he should take a closer look at his own actions and the action of the board, perhaps just even a glance at the lack of integrity, knowledge, trust, leadership and civic professionalism demonstrated by the city of Clearlake and the TV8 PEG Board. They are responsible for creating a questionable programming policy, and the board does not even have bylaws or reasonable transparency to protect those involved from arbitrary and questionable actions the board and city has demonstrated, such as replacing TV8 PEG personnel, and in shutting down the PEG station from public access.

Let’s (We The People) also consider the possibly that our freedom of speech may not be the same as TV8 PEG Board member Joyce Overton’s freedom of speech (as she apparently suggested in a recorded public meeting). Does this arrogant statement made by Joyce Overton in her position of elected power not capture something about the problem? Is there here a possible causative link behind the apparent illegal manipulation of programming by the TV8 PEG Board, the shutting down of the TV8 PEG station by the City, and the consequent displacement of former TV8 volunteers?

A new TV8 PEG crew (who apparently also knows little about running a PEG station) was rather quickly installed, as though waiting in the wings. But now, with a new provisional and “proper” manager in place, TV8 PEG prime time will not inform us, that our homes, our health, our education, our environment, our work, our money, and our constitutional freedoms, are systematically and politically being destroyed by corporate and government collusion (What? Oh well, that’s just more non-local conspiracy theory?).

The board’s leadership mentality is almost nicely symbolized in part, by broadcasting a blank screen on Your TV8 PEG channel. And, with just a bit more broadcasting skill, the current TV8 crew will be able to keep Lake County Citizens uninformed, diverted and dummied down with pabulum prime-time programming to maintain that good old-time family prime-time state of illusion while their freedoms burn from the top down, burned to the ground within economic flames of malignant authority in bed with corporate greed, robbing them blind to the point where they now can hardly distinguish between a blank tv screen and the mush fed them, to keep them quiet – rock-a-bye-bye baby until the bell tolls.

Do We The People of Lake County want a dictatorship running Our PEG station? Do We want a TV8 PEG Board assuming what’s good for us to see and a board that violates due process and legal governing regulations? Do we want a city administrator, such as Dale Neiman, who knows nothing about operating a PEG station but knows how to make it dysfunctional and shut it down via covert suggestion from an equally ignorant TV8 PEG Board?

Note here that the Clearlake City Council, influenced by Dale Neiman, recently passed a resolution where volunteers must now have a background check involving their physical, mental and credit worthiness. Are your papers in order? As if people are just clamoring to be volunteers for a PEG station, and that such a city council resolution will increase volunteer interest? Is this another method to make TV8 more dysfunctional now (the timing is exquisite)? Is this another subtle political method to restrict Your right to be heard?

If you want mush and a poverty of mind while your house is burning then support the current TV8 PEG Board of Directors of the city of Clearlake, which is composed in part, of elected county supervisor (Jeff Smith), Clearlake city official (Joyce Overton) and ex-county supervisor (Ed Robey). These public representatives on the TV8 PEG Board of Directors have apparently assumed the power to say, for our public access station, what our freedom of speech should be.

If you want to work as a TV8 PEG volunteer for the benefit of We The People of Lake County, promoting a greater understanding of governmental processes and community cohesion through education, information sharing and entertainment, You should know the work is unpaid by the city of Clearlake with programming dictated by a TV8 PEG Board operating in conjunction with a city that intrudes into your health status and financial affairs in order for you to qualify as a sycophant for forces having the appearance of government but run by Machiavellians. What a deal! But hey, it‘s just my personal opinion!

Now either enjoy your pabulum and blank screen imposed mentality or get more involved. They apparently need to be informed as well as you. Either enjoy the mess made by irresponsible government or get “mad as hell,” and then actively participate in the construction of a better neighborhood, government, city, county or world, for now your neighborhood is fast becoming the world, which is fast becoming as dysfunctional as the city of Clearlake and its ten year old abused and crippled TV8 PEG station.

Maurice Taylor lives in Clearlake.