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Some thoughts on the new Cable Advisory Board
by Joe Viglione
On Wednesday, March 22, 2018 at 7 PM there will be the first meeting of Mayor Burke's new Medford Cable Advisory Board. The city is being very careful about not violating the Open Meeting Law since this writer was responsible for alerting the Medford School Committee and the Medford City Council to the fact that a Chapter 74 Board was in operation with no legal postings of the meetings. This outraged Councilor Breanna Lungo Koehn who immediately put a motion or resolution forth at the city council to investigate. Meanwhile I filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office Division of Open Government which concerns itself with Open Meeting Law compliance. On September 19, 2017 the Division found in my favor that the Chapter 74 board had violated the Open Meeting Law on two occasions, October 25, 2016 and April 4, 2017 See link:
Search here: http://www.oml.ago.state.ma.us/
This is more than significant because the board members, including Paul Gerety who was a former
Vice President of Medford Community Cablevision, Inc., should have known better. The same with School Superintendent Roy E. Belson and Mayor Muccini-Burke. There is no plausible deniability for these officials to have had meetings in the dark without input from the council or school committee, especially with the access station being placed in the school, against the wishes of former Mayor McGlynn's own tribunal (MWRA Exec Director Fred Laskey, Rev. George "Chip" Hines of Sharon, formerly at Medford churches, and Allison Goldsberry, one of three teachers whose salary comes directly from access television monies.)
The access TV tribunal was a dog and pony show designed to distract from Mayor McGlynn's intention of putting the station at the high school. Brief note: due to a home rule petition from long ago, Medford uses 60 percent of the Access TV P/E/G (Public, Educational, Governmental) monies for the "general fund," 20 percent to pay three teachers, Lisa Dunphy, Jack Dempsey (owner of Lexington's J.D. Sports Videos,) and Allison Goldsberry ...ostensibly these monies are what are designated for the "government channel" but they seem to get waylaid into the school system by some stroke of magic...allegedly,) and 20 percent for the Public side of access. WITH the school obtaining the station, the priorities have been the government channel and the school channel, one new teacher (Krissy Fraser) imploring me not to litigate "for the children" (?????)
You can see why Access TV has always been a hot button issue, and the accusations and allegations of hiding the truth about access TV proven to be true with the Determination from the AG's Division of Open Government findings against Burke, Belson, Gerety, et. al.
March 22, 2018 the Mayor wants to install her new Cabe Advisory Board which includes my pal Yvette Wilks from Somerville Media Center, where she is on the board of directors. Yvette is a terrific person, and it is going to be very interesting to see how an access professional interacts with a mayor who has - clearly - hijacked one hundred percent of the access television monies, leaving the public without a true access station, fracturing free speech and the First Amendment.
"They have broken the spirit of access" former city councilor Stephanie Muccini-Burke said about the ousted Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. So why are former members of MCC the ones producing programming at Medford Community Media, the new access station. And full disclosure, this writer - Joseph A. Viglione - was the sole person to put in a proposal under Mayor McGlynn's RFP (request for proposals) and the registered business in Medford that submitted that proposal: Community Media Medford.
Ya think Ben Brown didn't steal Medford Community Media from a Medford registered business, just as the previous station manager attempted to (without having his board of directors signing the business certificate!)
I have in my possession a document from Medford City Hall where a former MCC TV3 station manager filed that he was the owner of Community Media Medford, my YouTube and Blog sites. The old TV 3 violated their contractual obligation to do "outreach" by actually harassing the community. That former manager signed a stay away order in Superior Court to not come to my home or to Tony's Gas, which is next to my home. So why am I telling you this in a story on the new Cable Advisory board? Simply because things have not changed at all: the old TV3 cronies are active at the station, old MCC programming is aired along with ridiculous public service announcements, and the current station manager, Ben Brown, at $67,500.00 per year, has also failed to do proper outreach, failed to have decent audio at the school committee and city council meetings, and has an absurd CORI check as part of the plan to keep residents out of THEIR access TV station. Burlington, Woburn, Wakefield and other cities and towns have access TV at their high schools with no such obstacles. Medford's school system RENTS OUT the schools to outside parties with no CORI check. The City lawyer, Mark E. Rumley, personally told me the CORI check was his idea.
Which brings us to Mayor McGlynn's cable advisory board. When I filed a public records request to a teacher, Richard Trotta, he resigned from the board rather than answer my questions. Poor Ray McDonald had passed away five years before Mayor McGlynn took his name off of the cable TV commission, leaving only Richard Giovino and a then-infuriated Robert E. Skerry, former school committee person. Mr. Skerry, a friend of mine, was outraged at the time that Mayor McGlynn refused to keep him in the loop.
So let's look back at Mayor McGlynn's Commission prior to Mayor Burke resurrecting the idea:
The seven members of the Cable TV Commission at that time were former School Committee member Robert E. Skerry, Richard Giovino, Michael Wyche, Michele Bordieri, Donald McCarthy, Raymond McDonald. and Richard Trotta who teaches audio/visual at the high school.
In August of 2006, before I wrote my initial report to City Hall, requested by McGlynn in his office during a meeting, I obtained information on Merrimack's Cable Television Advisory Commission that was sent to the City Solicitor of Medford. That group's mission was very clear - and missing in the city of Medford:
The Merrimack Cable Television Advisory Committee works to provide and promote a medium, a method, and a facility for the greater Merrimack, N.H., community to communicate a diversity of non-commercial messages.
Purpose
The purposes of this Committee shall be:
1. To recommend policies and procedures to the Franchising Authority (in Medford the Mayor's title along these lines is "Issuing Authority" ) for the use of the public access channel;
2. To monitor the use of the public access channel and the public access center, and to make recommendations to the Franchising Authority regarding the non-appropriate use and/or non-compliance for such use by any individual or group;
3. To promote the use of the public access channel and the public access center;
In March of 2011, Mayor McGlynn stateds that his "Cable Advisory Commission acts in a supervisory role to the local cable channels, by recommending policy changes, meeting with cable company representatives to discuss issues of mutual interest, report to the mayor on company compliance with the license, respond to citizen questions regarding the cable television system and keep the community informed about community programming."
Okie dokie, if you say so. This journalist theorizes, based on information and belief, and McGlynn's track record, that there was no supervisory role. It was a front, and McGlynn decided on his own how things would operate in this city.
Fast forward to today:
Mayor Muccini-Burke is both the chair of the school committee as well as the "issuing authority" in Medford, the person who oversees the cable contracts with Verizon and Comcast. (Please note:The Mayor's Campaign Finance Report from 2015/2016 has a $150.00 campaign contribution from a Timothy Kelly Jr. from Marblehead - while Linked IN has a Timothy Kelly as the Comcast VP of Govt. and Regulatory Affairs. )
Why is this important?
Because like McGlynn before her, Muccini-Burke is a control freak. She decides, and the "input" she gets goes into the circular file. It is her way or the highway. And this article seeing the light of day in publications that the mayor seems to control? Don't hold your breath!
Notes:
1) Campaign Finance - Stephanie Muccini-Burke
2)Tim Kelly - Comcast
3)Medford Cable Advisory Board Meeting March 22, 2018
Posted on March 15, 2018
Meeting Of Medford Cable Advisory Board
Location: Medford Community Media – 489 Winthrop St.
March 22, 2018 7:00PM (rescheduled from March 15)
