FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Award-winning Access TV host Joe Viglione
to Demand City Council Inspect if Cable TV Ratepayers are Benefiting from the Access TV Station
Joe Viglione will speak to the Medford City Council on Tuesday, January 30, 2018 to demand a review of the access television station and its young manager, Ben Brown.
Viglione will be bringing MEMBERSHIP FORMS from ESTABLISHED access TV stations - CCTV Cambridge, Somerville TV, Malden Access TV and other stations to compare to the monstrous and free-speech-chilling 3 or 4 page agreement that Medford television offers
Our young station is floundering because inexperienced Mayor Muccini-Burke hired an inexperienced Ben Brown instead of having MEDFORD RESIDENTS providing access TV. Ben Brown's inexperience and contempt for some residents has made the station a ghost town.
Our $67,500.00 that he takes every week to be the pit bull for Burke to keep our station from flourishing is a sin and a disgrace. Have you gotten a phone call on access TV? A flyer in the mail? Outreach? Facilitation of programming?
Medford has suffered with four inexperienced station managers over the past 20 years, one couldn't even put a tripod together while Dawn Natailia's little "experience" - which she had to confess on a witness stand in Superior Court, was producing ONE show for her husband at Worcester TV.
What a disgrace. And she was hired to come up from Foster Rhode Island day after day with her doggy running around the station, allegedly, and her husband and what does that have to do with Medford? She made films that allegedly she claims she owns through her various corporations.
And the issuing authority, Michael J. McGlynn, enabled that lunacy.
Viglione is demanding that the City Council - a council paid for by the people - obtain:
---the membership records at the station - how many members are there?
---a list of locally produced programs
---a list of all the classes held for the public and attendees - NOT students, but members of the station
Furthermore, it is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST for the mayor to be the "issuing authority." She has so abused access television that candidates for elected office, including her major competition, David McKillop, did not have the access to the free speech platform at election time as it was maliciously and intentionally blocked by Burke.
Her city solicitor having the audacity to tell this reporter that he demanded the CORI check at the station - something that does NOT exist at Woburn High, Wakefield High, Burlington High, and which has made the city lawyer the laughingstock of other cities and towns. Rest assured, I let all who are interested know exactly who the mischievous and highly questionable city lawyer is that engaged in such reprehensible censorship conduct.
The city lawyer's "CORI Check" as the Donald Trump Fake News lawyer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He's a joke.
Here are the key topics:
1)As there is no non-profit currenty handling the access television station, it is NOW under the jurisdiction of the Medford City Council, because it has to do with the budget
a)approximately 60% of the monies go into the General Fund
---has the city council ever even looked at a line-by-line list of expenditures using cable TV subscriber monies, not tax monies?
---the city council's "government channel" monies allegedly go to pay 3 teachers, Dunphy, Dempsey and Goldsberry. Why?
---the educational monies are in the general fund, are they not?
---the public access funds now fund the governmental channel and the educational channel, access TV subscribers be damned.
b)Ben Brown has on Wednesday night a show at 6 pm, "Reeling" imported from Malden, and two other shows. We have no idea where this programming is from, and from what this viewer has seen,
c)Ben Brown issues a station full of PSA material - public service announcements. One resident fears going to the station due to the extraordinary paperwork.
The Council needs to request that Ben Brown deliver:
---a list of outreach that he has accomplished for the $67,500.00 he receives
---a list of members who have joined prior to the writing of this e mail 1/24/18
---a list of sponsors
---a list of locally made programs
2)Remove the 3-4 page agreement and nutty CORI check and reduce it to a simple 2 pages
Something is wrong when a mayor asks candidates for public office for a CORI check and refuses to allow them on a free speech platform paid for by cable TV subscribers prior to a Sept. 12 2017 primary. It is censorship, pure and simple
3)Responsible councilors will demand accountability; Mayor Muccini-Burke enablers will sit on their hands, not do "the people's business," and will then be suspect as this is a huge free speech issue.
Are you a responsible councilor for this city, or do you kiss the feet of Stephanie Muccini-Burke?
We'll find out on Tuesday night when I put it directly to the six councilors. Adam Knight will not be receiving the documents as he tears them up. Not a joke. There's something twisted about an individual voting for his own pay raise and being obnoxious on the city council...Mr. Dello Russo, and when Adam Knight copies his idol, Fred Dello Russo, you get the same insulting results for your 30k a year.
We deserve access TV in this city.
I am fighting for your rights.
My first access show was in 1979. 39 years ago. I've forgotten more about access television than the "issuing authority" will ever learn. And even her good pal Paul Camuso told the citizens of Medford that you can't have an access station without a 501c3. Why isn't Mayor Burke listening to her good friend Paul?
see you on Tuesday evening...
Joe Viglione
Joe Viglione
