A quite remarkable development is occuring her in Marin county as the public access television station is forced to seek a new home Comcast stops hosting this vital public service and evicts the studio from it's long time location on Anderson Drive in San Rafael. The county joint powers authority that regulates telecommunications, Marin Telecommunications Agency, has blessed the formation of a non-profit organization that will operate Public Access television.
It's been a long public process starting with a small group of active producers who wanted to nurture public access television in Marin back in 1996 who met at Sandy Marker's home in Corte Madera to strategize. Starting from a small group of advocates who went to Marin Telecommunications Agency public meetings to speak out for Access television as an important public commons, the new town square, the group wouldn't let the cable companies and the MTA kill off public access.
For some years the MTA board was indifferent to public access issues, then actively hostile. Several groups in the county became interested in nurturing and preserving this fragile avenue for free speach including Media Action Marin, a liberal libertarian coalition that included social justice groups and individuals interested in free speach.
The Marin Telecommunications Agency board meetings became rather contentious and eventually the board formed an advisory committee to take public input and advise the board on public access issues. This was the genisis of the Marin Access Advisory Committee eventually known by it's acronym, MAAC.
MAAC met monthly with members appointed by the MTA and developed a number of reports that defined the role of public access, and articulated a vision of how the service could benefit the community in Marin. One of the first things that MAAC did was to redefine it's mission from just Public Access television to include Educational Access Television and Government Access television ( PEG). At first, the MTA wasn't supportive of the idea that government public meetings should be made televised.
Indeed, the San Rafael City Manager at the time, Ron Gould was so hostile to public access that he threw out an MTA consultant who came to discuss putting city council meetings on tv! The county administrator who was assigned to support the MTA attended meetings of MAAC but characterized the group as a fringe group of political activists.
Reality is that the MAAC group had elements from many aspects of Marin life including Len Schlosser who represented seniors ( his show "A Time for All Ages" is still popular years after he passed on), Jerry Catigan ( Marin Special Olympics and environmentalist ), two lawyers, and some public access producers. Over time the MAAC developed the idea that public access is a vital public commons that exists as a concession to the commercial operation that uses the public right of way, a tiny slice of the bandwidth reserved for the public amidst the vast array of commercial channels.
Over time, the composition of the Marin Telecommunications Agency changed and the long time members of the board learned about public television. Despite many lost opportunities to make favorable deals with cable operators, the MAAC continued to advocate for public access and just wouldn't go away.
Persistence had it's reward, eventually the Marin Telecommunications Agency board attracted some members with telecommunications competence. Eventually the agency Exectutive Director was told to hire a consultant to help with negotiations as the board recognized that their director was not able to negotiate on his own with the big cable companies.
Once the outside experts validated a number of the points that MAAC had been advocating for years, the credibility of the advisory group solidified and the process of negotiating a cable franchise that would preserve public access was on solid ground. It still took over 5 years for the county to negotiate an agreement.
Over the years the offers from the cable companies went down in value. As the MTA fiddled around, the offers dwindled from an AT&T offer of $12 million over 10 years down to about 3Million over 1o years made by Comcast.
The national context shifted as well, and it became clear that if the MTA failed to act, changes in law could leave Marin without any public access benefits. Over time the cable companies starved the public access operation, carved out channel time for leased informercials at the expense of public time, and generally discouraged any local production.
Once the new MTA board got serious about supporting public access channels, the executive director changed his tune, brought in Tom Robinson from CBG communications and negotiated a franchise that preserves public access.
The MAAC recommended that a non-profit be established to run public access as a designated access provider (DAP) as an independent public organization funded in part by franchise fees to be a fair broker of the channel time, and to educate the public, to provide the means to produce shows and as a host to the vital public commons. Initially the idea was rejected by the executive director and the MTA board but as the executive director was edged out and replaced by a community orientated person, the idea gained credibility.
Marin now has the Marin Community Media Center, Inc. as a non-profit that will operate public access television in Marin though it is only two months old and just beginning to organize itself.
The vision of the newly formed board of directors includes traditional public access, but also video on demand, web access, community radio and media literacy. The vision for the Media Center is inclusionary, embracing the many populations in Marin County such as the seniors, hispanics, asian community, native americans, youth, arts, cultural groups and religious groups.
The 2007 Marin Telecommunications Board has distinguished itself by taking this bold step, and is negotiating an agreement with the College of Marin to host the main production facility. Marin county is creating a new institution that will nurture the public commons and provide a connection space for our community institutions, organizations and individuals if it can reach out and develop public support.
For me the evolution has been gradual, sometimes imperceptible and yet very rewarding. When I started this journey it seemed impossible that Marin would every have a non-profit that would operate in the public interest supported by the Marin Telecommunications Agency and the public. Today it is a reality.
One side effect of my service on MAAC: I met my wife Sharon at a MAAC meeting!
