Cable Advisory Board MEMORANDUM from Joe Viglione 3:06 am July 19, 2018

1,221,019 @ 3:55 am July 19, 2018

MEMORANDUM

TO: MEDFORD CABLE ADVISORY BOARD

FROM: JOE VIGLIONE, VETERAN ACCESS PRODUCER

DATE: JULY 19, 2018

RE: AMENDED LIST OF TOPICS

GREETINGS:

THE LIST OF TOPICS FOR THE JULY 19^TH MEETING ARE EXTREMELY THIN, AS HAVE BEEN THE DISCUSSIONS AT ALL THE MEETINGS THAT I HAVE ATTENDED.

Cable Advisory Board’s thin agenda:
Approve minutes from prior meeting Station Manager Updates Evaluate Producer Agreement Assign Point of Contact Roles for each Board Member Other Business

1)There needs to be a sense of urgency that is lacking with this board – the Chapter 74 board was in violation of the Open Meeting Law and the city council as well as the school committee were unaware that there even was a Chapter 74 board.  That is not transparency and it smacks of cronyism and keeping the public – and elected officials – in the dark.

2)This tribunal of Campbell, Wilks and Follett-Sumney lacks focus. One member showed up late, all three members were shuffling papers at the previous meeting, the audience participation – as exhibited on my recordings – displayed more knowledge, input, brio and care, yet Campbell, Wilks and Follett-Sumney appear annoyed by that input.

3)Public Participation is essential, especially given Jay Campbell’s lack of knowledge regarding access TV, the history of access in Medford, and even running a meeting properly.  Yvette Wilks didn’t care to show up on time, and Follett-Sumney admitted that she has little experience with P/E/G or with the city of Medord prior to her appointment.

In the private sector they would all be removed and replaced with experienced individuals with a strong passion for P/E/G.  Shuffling papers, showing up late, forgetting to take a vote, this kind of immature and unprofessional conduct is a slap in the face to cable TV ratepayers who have been cheated for the better part of three decades in the city of Medford.

What we the public have witnessed since March is nothing more than a continuation of the secretive Chapter 74 Board, the ineffective Mike McGlynn Cable TV Commission, and the failure of each and every station manager going back to Steve Klooney – from Klooney to Steve Marra to Jason Salzarulo, Dawn Natalia, Dan Sarno right up to the negligence and incompetence of Ben Brown who couldn’t even run a city council taping properly without feedback interrupting almost every speaker at the high school’s Caron Theater, except for this experienced producer. 

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Veteran Medford producers have expressed to me that they feel ostracized by this Cable TV Board.   So you have Jay Campbell sending out “7 letters” to potential producers and gleefully discussing his own real estate program, a massive conflict of interest, while there is talent ready, willing and able to participate, yet feeling abused by Krissy Fraser, by Ben Brown, and ignored by this Cable Advisory Board.

Here’s an excellent example: Why has this Advisory Board not been able to come up with a thorough look at the needs of the community and solutions, as this Memorandum is offering?

When Mr. Campbell speaks of “Jack” without going on public record with the last name it is simply “Tom, Dick and Harry,” and the public, again, has an unprofessional tribunal acting like an insider’s club, more impressed with themselves that Mayor Muccini-Burke appointed them than actually doing something of SUBSTANCE for the community, and in a timely manner, as in, having things in place by May since the station opened in June of 2017.

The station intentionally neglected candidates running for office in 2017, and the CORI check is such an invasion of privacy of people who are on the ballot it is both chilling and frightening.

Mayor Burke, with the title of “Issuing Authority,” has access to possible criminal records of anyone who may decide they want to run for school committee or city council, information that Muccini-Burke could “leak” to the media, especially in light of the underhanded way that she defamed her opponent, Bob Penta, with the ugly “homophobia” campaign she ran.

Interesting that Mr. Penta has done more for the gay community in actions, not words, and has invited his gay friends and colleagues to his public and private political meetings, yet Muccini-Burke put out ugly “robo calls” – Donald Trumpian tactics that were hurtful and offensive.

The CORI check is not required of people renting the high school; it is a stunt created by Mark E. Rumley to give his boss, Muccini-Burke, a leg-up on her opponents, and a way to put yet another stumbling block in front of access producers.  Mrs. Burke is terrified of free speech, otherwise we would have had our access station up and running with simply purchasing a van and some computers and cameras.  I expressed this to the city council in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, yet Yvette Wilks gets all huffy that this Tribunal has all the ideas on a satellite station.  Really?  Where ARE those ideas?  Where ARE those locations?

This Tribunal can’t even post the meetings in a timely manner so that the public can participate. It’s yet another Medford “insider’s club” that ostracizes the public and does the bidding of a mayor who loathes freedom of the press, P/E/G media, and the thought that anyone could call her out on her misconduct and blatant cronyism.

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SOLUTIONS

As a solution oriented person, one who frightens access stations who engage in cronyism - stations who engage in self service rather than the public service that is their mandate, my cards are right on the table.  Here they are again:

1)     We need a station that does outreach

2)     The facilitation of programming is key.  Why were my DVDs ignored prior to the indemnification agreement while Ben Brown played programming from Dedham and Westford and communities that do not impact Medford?

3)     Paul Gerety, who was essential to the now under investigation MCC TV3, should not have been anywhere near the Chapter 74 board.  I witnessed Mr. Gerety explode at Frank Pilleri, Pilleri exploding right back, the two of them engaged in yelling and screaming at each other over the TV3 van at 40 Canal Street.

4)     Didn’t TV3 lose leases to 40 Canal St., 5 High St and Riverside Ave? Why do we not have an empty storefront that can be a satellite station?  I could find one yesterday given the chance, but then again, I am passionate about access TV while this Cable Board is too busy looking in the mirror and saying “it’s a gift” --- the love – the warmth – what the hell does that have to do with Access TV?  Grow up, be professional, or resign from this board for showing up late, shuffling papers, forgetting to vote, and not having a clue about what this city needs.

5)     Reach out to the access TV veterans.

6)     Put MCC TV3 – Steve Bertorelli, Arthur Deluca, Paul Gerety, on notice that until the Attorney General’s investigation is over, until “law enforcement” – which is looking into the TV3 fiasco, makes a decision, for the health of public access and the safety of the public, those individuals need to stay away from access television so that the real public can have an opportunity that Deluca and his cronies DENIED dozens and dozens of people.

7)     Muccini-Burke is not going to hire someone who will facilitate programming and do outreach.  Her CORI check to spy on political opponents, the lies from Mark Rumley to Judge Jackson-Thompson regarding free speech, the citizens and cable subscribers are tired of the malarkey and getting ripped off by city government which forgets that its mandate is PUBLIC SERVICE, not self-service.

8)     Twice the city of Medford has used the term “moving forward” in regards to access, and that was over one to two years of false promises and hoarding the access monies.

9)     The General Fund vacuuming the majority of P/E/G monies and the three teacher salaries taken from P/E/G monies leave a mere 20 percent for access, which is now being diverted to the Educational and Governmental channels, access be damned. That has to end. Why has this Tribunal spent more time kissing Stephanie Burke’s ring than demanding accountability for every nickel of access TV money?

10) Replace this tribunal with people who give a damn, not people who shuffle paper. This tribunal over the past four months has been an abject failure, as noted in this Memo

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And captured on Facebook Live and video recordings.

It is time to act, not give us lip service and a poor meeting schedule.

In March Yvette Wilks asked me for a one page indemnification agreement when she sits on the board of Somerville Media Center.  I’m not content to get the broom of the wicked witch for my dear friend "the Wizard," Yvette Wilks.  But I humored her.  And it took from April to July to get it on the agenda?  Slow as molasses is not progress, and we access producers are insulted when we get talked down to by a Cable Advisory Board that is supposed to serve us, not sit there impressed that Stephanie Burke has appointed them.  It's all about the egos of Yvette, Jay and Gabby, and that smacks of Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. all over again.   

This is the problem, and we citizens who have paid enormous cable franchise fees want solutions.   Veteran producers have had a taste of Krissy Fraser's alleged malice, straight out of the Roy E. Belson playbook. She was such a nice, innocent kid until she got sucked in to the Medford vortex.  Now she's just out to protect her paycheck.

Muccini-Burke has vendettas against people who voted for Bob Penta or Dave McKillop. That’s how she does business. She polarizes this community when her false promises of bringing people together, of giving seniors free parking, of embracing public access, all lies and all offensive to the people paying her bloated salary.

This is not tough love.  These are facts.   Mr. Campbell needs to resign, he’s a fish out of water and is more concerned about his real estate program than building a station for the present and the future.  He's a joke and the community deserves better than yet another Ben Brown joke forced on them against their stolen franchise fee.

Even Frank Pilleri, a true enemy, endorsed Joe Viglione at the first meeting in March.
When a man interviews over a thousand people, when A-list guests speak to him, it should benefit the entire community.

What happens is a Somerville TV gets jealous if a rock star phones the station, a Winchester TV sends a city councilor’s check back to him with no note, because they want to keep access all to themselves – three board members hoarding the station the way that Stephanie Burke has hoarded the monies that Joe Viglione saved the city when he shut down TV3.

TV3 would exist today if Joe Viglione walked away when every other person did. I was the last person fighting for access.   Doreen Wade rejoined the battle, Bob Penta rejoined the battle, and together we shut down a station leading to Detective J.J. McLean phoning me to say “You won. You won. And the city is better off for it.”

I’m a solution oriented person who developed TV specials for PBS, has spoken on the BBC, taped for VH-1, and who has experience in P/E/G spanning 39 years.  I realize that this trio of individuals is seething with jealousy, so this trio of Cable “advisors” should step down and let the adults in the room to do what this board has failed to do: have a vibrant, exciting, flourishing access station that doesn’t push away guys like Fortch, Chris D., John Byers, but who/which reaches out to the veterans who will bring good will to the station, while putting the old TV3 crew on suspension until the AG’s office resolves the “law enforcement” issue.

Having watched this "fiasco" (Councilor Adam Knight's term for the old TV3,) this fiasco of a paper-shuffling, tardy-to-the-meeting, lack of knowledge it seems on Robert's Rules of Order, and a clear failure to understand what P/E/G is truly about, we citizens need to hold the "issuing authority" and her unqualified Cable Advisory Board accountable.

If it means complaint after complaint with the office of the Attorney General, if it means putting an injunction on the mayor as a clerk in Somerville District Court advised me to do, so be it.  

We have no access TV.  Our monies for P/E/G have been hijacked, and a cable TV board can't even remember the names of government officials speaking to it.

This helps access TV how?  Because Yvette Wilks needs an ego boost? Because Jay Campbell wants to use his position to benefit his real estate business, because Gabby Follett-Sumney is the second coming of Dawn Natalia, yet another filmmaker with no sense of what Medford is all about, no idea of what P/E/G access is, yet appointed to Muccini-Burke's Cable Advisory Board.

It's a sick joke played on the cable TV subscribers and it has to end now.

Just resign and let the adults in the room.  Three decades of foolishness in Medford, and Mark E. Rumley wants a CORI check on potential candidates running for office? What, he has no more credit card bills to collect at Somreville Court allegedly on the city of Medford's hour glass?

It's disgusting.

We're tired of it.

Give us unfettered access to access now, or maybe it really is time for a Class Action suit to see where the General Fund puts all our access TV monies.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Campbell, Wilks and Follett-Sumney to give the public an accounting of where every nickel is spent.   They're too busy being self-satisfied that some foolish mayor appointed them to a job that they have exhibited no qualifications for.   Yvette shows up late, Jay can't run a meeting, and Gabby has no experience in Access TV.     

We're being cheated again, and we've been cheated in Medford for too many years.

Mayor Burke and Mark E. Rumley LOATHE free speech, and they will fight tooth and nail to keep access TV producers OFF of the station.  They are stealing our resource for the city and it just isn't fair.

We've been down this road and it must change IMMEDIATELY

3:26 am