Citizens Panel to Present Plan for Teaching Via Public TV : Thousand Oaks: Committee wants a nonprofit foundation to supplement Channel 8 with more accessible production facilities.

Math tips and cooking hints, safety videos and surfing lessons could someday share airspace on a new public-access cable channel run by a nonprofit foundation that would be dedicated to televised teaching.

The Thousand Oaks City Council tonight will discuss a 70-page report calling for a public education station that would be funded by donations and local cable franchises.

As proposed, the educational broadcast would supplement Channel 8, a public-access station aired in Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Moorpark that has offered everything from religious messages to psychedelic graphics to inspirational interviews with the rich and famous.

“We want to make (cable) larger, make it better, make it more accessible to people,” said retired film production professor M. Ali Issari, who sits on a citizens advisory committee that will present the report to the council.

“Human beings thrive on creation,” Issari said. Through the new channel, he said, “people will learn the satisfaction of communicating. They have something to say, and they will say it on television.”

To help residents of all ages have their say on television, the committee recommends establishing a nonprofit foundation to run a brand-new, high-tech studio, preferably in the Civic Arts Plaza.

Elementary schoolchildren, college students, senior citizens or anyone else interested in cable production could swing by City Hall and learn how to put together a television show.

Under the committee’s proposal, Moorpark College professors could offer televised lectures. Thousand Oaks students could film their own plays. Principals could record soccer games or PTA meetings, or broadcast school lunch menus.

The station would be “virtually as creative as the mind can be,” city Media Services Manager Shirley Cobb said.

The concept of an all-education station and state-of-the-art studio thrills some local TV producers, who say they are frustrated with Channel 8.

Ventura County Cablevision runs Channel 8 out of a small studio in Agoura Hills. The company offers periodic training classes, keeps five cameras on hand for residents and pays four full-time staff members to help the amateur producers.

*

But residents still complain that VCC does not offer them enough support, equipment or training to pull together slick productions. A nonprofit group dedicated to public access, they said, could boost both the quantity and the quality of amateur shows.

At the Ventura County Cablevision studio, “there’s no encouragement, no one saying ‘Yes, you can do it, this is fun,’ ” said Lori Rai, a committee member. “Public access is a bother to them--they have a television station to run.”

VCC Vice President for Operations Dan Deutsch said the complaints might have “some merit,” and added that he applauds the push for an educational station run by a nonprofit group.

But Deutsch questioned the need for an expensive new studio--and said he wasn’t sure his cable company could underwrite the cost. He said only about 15 people a week use the VCC cameras for public-access shows, and another 25 a week work in the editing room.

Equipping a new studio would cost at least $400,000, committee members said. Rent and staff salaries could run the cost up considerably as well, though no one has precise figures.

“All I know is, VCC is spending a big chunk of change on public access,” said Carl Jarecky, the city’s cable systems coordinator.

*

VCC is negotiating a new cable franchise agreement with the city and could end up agreeing to cover part of the cost of an educational channel.

Yet the company also has obligations to Camarillo and Moorpark residents. To support the Thousand Oaks project, Deutsch said, VCC might have to pass the cost on to local cable customers in the form of a line item on the monthly bill.

“If you build it, will they come?” he asked. “Is there that much interest out there? That will determine whether this will fly.”