YORBA LINDA : Candidate Demands Equal Cable Time

A City Council candidate is demanding equal time on a city-run cable channel because it broadcasts a written roster of incumbent council members.

Candidate John Gullixson says he should be given the same sort of listing because the channel gives an unfair advantage to Councilmen Henry W. Wedaa and Roland E. Bigonger.

The city currently broadcasts the roster every few minutes on Channel 3B, along with a continuous listing of council and commission agendas, public hearings and recent council decisions.

“Either they should put my name on or take their names off,” Gullixson said Monday. “ . . . Is not a candidate just as important to the city as a City Council member? Certainly they should be.”

But City Atty. Leonard A. Hampel, in a letter to Gullixson, said that the broadcast of the rosters falls under the category of a “bona fide newscast,” making it exempt from Federal Communications Commission equal-time provisions.

“The city’s broadcasting on Channel 3B of the date, time and place of council meetings, hearings and city commission meetings and events is in our judgment a bona fide newscast and therefore not a use requiring equal time,” Hampel wrote.

But Gullixson said he is not opposed to the listing of agendas and events, just the roster.

“There is nothing newsworthy about a roster of their names,” he said.

“This definitely is not a news broadcast.”

He added that candidates now have to pay money to place their names on a “classified ad” channel.

Currently, Yorba Linda does not broadcast its council meetings. At tonight’s meeting, Councilman Mark Schwing is expected to submit a proposal to experiment with cable broadcasts over a four-week period. Schwing said that the proposal is unrelated to Gullixson’s request.