Huntington Beach : Candidate Hits KOCE’s Assembly Race Blackout

Contending that locally supported television should cover local elections, a Huntington Beach woman charged Wednesday that public television station KOCE in Huntington Beach is producing election specials on most county elections but has “blacked out” her June 3 Assembly race.

Peggy Staggs, a Democratic candidate for the 58th Assembly district, complained that KOCE executive producer Jim Cooper will be airing interviews with candidates in the central and northern parts of the county, “but he’s ignoring the ones on the coast where the taxpayers fund the station.”

“I’m outraged,” said Staggs, 54, a history teacher at Golden West College, where KOCE has its headquarters. “It turns out they’re covering election campaigns from all over the county except in the local area.”

Cooper acknowledged that the station is not covering the 58th Assembly District race. Pre-election interviews on that race and others were dropped because of budget cuts at the station, he said.

“I regret that we can’t cover all the races,” Cooper said. He said the station is not covering the 58th Assembly and 42nd Congressional District races because more than half the districts lie within Los Angeles County. Similarly, Cooper said, he decided against covering the 74th Assembly and the 43rd Congressional District races because most of those districts are in San Diego County. He said he also decided not to cover the 69th, 70th, and 71st Assembly District primary races because there are no contested seats.

The Coast Community College District, which operates KOCE, Channel 50, has trimmed the station’s budget from about $2 million in 1983 to $1 million this year.