1,046,208 @ 2:14 pm
League of Women Voters
133 Portland St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: (617) 523-2999
Fax: (617) 248-0881
League of Women Voters
133 Portland St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: (617) 523-2999
Fax: (617) 248-0881
Dear League of Women Voters:
We have no access TV in a city, Medford, that has a mayor DENYING free speech rights intentionally.
I
met with Jeanine Camuso today at 12:28 pm in the officer of Mayor
Stephanie Muccini-Burke.
Mrs. Camuso took my phone number and said she would get back to me, however, I have been a victim of her husband, former City Council President Paul A. Camuso who has harassed me repeatedly since 2006 (there are police reports) - blasting his horn at me in the parking lot of city hall, pointing at me in a threatening manner and then taking off at a high rate of speed through a do not enter sign.
It was NOT the first time Camuso has harassed me at the city council.
Mrs. Camuso took my phone number and said she would get back to me, however, I have been a victim of her husband, former City Council President Paul A. Camuso who has harassed me repeatedly since 2006 (there are police reports) - blasting his horn at me in the parking lot of city hall, pointing at me in a threatening manner and then taking off at a high rate of speed through a do not enter sign.
It was NOT the first time Camuso has harassed me at the city council.
This is what they do to deny voters their rights.
Ms.
Camuso told me that she would contact Ben Brown, the young new station
manager who accepted a job that was advertised as Sixty Five thousand to
Seventy Five Thousand a YEAR. She said Mr. Brown would contact me,
but since the new, novice station manager is derelict in his duties and
what he promised me, and given the information above, I doubt that Mr.
Brown wants to do the "outreach" that he is required to perform.
Mr.
Brown needs to tell me when my show will air on the new access station
during this critical election, a primary set for September 12. The
Mayor does not want anyone to go to the primary so she has this Medford
Media Blackout in place, insulting the cable TV subscribers, the voters
and the residents with her nonsensical public service announcements
which are a huge turn-off. Nothing about the election for candidate
Cheryl Rodriguez as Mrs. Burke doesn't want non-incumbents getting any
traction.
Mr.
Brown spoke with me approximately two weeks ago that he would remove
the objectionable diabetes public service announcements from our access
TV station. Mr. Brown also informed me that he didn't know how to put a
form together for volunteer producers to sign in order to be on a
Verizon channel. How can Mrs. Burke hire someone who doesn't even know
how to put a simple form together which Hingham TV and Malden TV have. I
sent Mr. Brown a copy of the Hingham form, doing his job for him, but
it appears he is still clueless as to how to put a public access station
on air during a primary, a critical primary, squelching voter rights. A
person with the skills to be a station manager, not a young man without
the life experience AND the knowledge of Medford, needs to be hired.
Stephanie
Muccini-Burke only filed a certificate that she completed the Conflict
of Interest Law training this week, August 29th, after I filed an appeal
with the Secretary of State's office for Mayor Burke's failure to hand
over information on the open meeting law that I had requested.
I
submit that when Mayor Burke airs her own speech rather than the city
council, hijacking the access station when she is the sole issuing
authority, that it is a pure CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Worse, she is
DENYING other candidates the right that she, as Issuing Authority, takes
for granted is hers and hers alone, like Donald Trump on steroids.
Trumpian actions at their most vulgar
It
is a HUGE conflict of interest, and the mayor didn't even take the
training until my public records request appears to have forced her to.
See date on document below, signed AFTER my public records request.
Medford
has suffered under THREE UNQUALIFIED access TV station managers when
the now-under-investigation Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. hired
unqualified hacks - not to facilitate programming and do outreach - but
to be "scarecrows" and harass the public.
The
final station manager has a restraining order to stay away from my home
and a business next to my home. They were put in place to DENY voters
the right to free speech, one board member actually selling airtime
disguised as promotion; allegedly even using our equipment - a board
member taking money from candidates to air their promos (allegedly)
while DENYING other residents that allegedly didn't pay him off.
Now we have a new station manager that tells me he doesn't know about "Verizon." Then why was he hired, Mrs. Burke? Oh, of course,
if
you hire someone unqualified, candidates are kept off of the airwaves
eleven days before an election, on Labor Day weekend. I get it.
The
League of Women Voters should know that a woman candidate, Cheryl
Rodriguez, is being harmed by Mayor Burke's failure to hire a qualified
veteran to operate the access station, someone that knows what Verizon
and Comcast need, and someone who won't play a relentless barrage of
ugly public service announcements to hurt the primary election and deny
the voters the information that they need.
From Common Cause:
Station managers interviewed responded to a series of questions designed to assess: • Understanding of a broadcaster’s public interest obligations, particularly around election coverage • Commitment to balance and fairness in political coverage • Pressures put on local stations by corporate owners • Planned coverage of candidates and issues during the weeks prior to the election. SMG members also reviewed the public interest files of each station, files that are required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to keep an accounting of each station’s public service work. These files include viewers’ comments as well as listings of broadcasts that benefit the community, donations or contributions to local nonprofit causes, and revenues for campaign ads sold to candidates and committees.
Station managers interviewed responded to a series of questions designed to assess: • Understanding of a broadcaster’s public interest obligations, particularly around election coverage • Commitment to balance and fairness in political coverage • Pressures put on local stations by corporate owners • Planned coverage of candidates and issues during the weeks prior to the election. SMG members also reviewed the public interest files of each station, files that are required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to keep an accounting of each station’s public service work. These files include viewers’ comments as well as listings of broadcasts that benefit the community, donations or contributions to local nonprofit causes, and revenues for campaign ads sold to candidates and committees.
Please
put pressure on Mayor Muccini-Burke to put the access station on NOW or
to resign from office for the obvious conflict of interest.
A contact that I have met with at the State Ethics Commission is in the bcc.
Thank you.
Joe Viglione
