Pasadena: Cable TV and Community Access
The April 6 article on reforming Pasadena’s city commissions listed Community Access (to cable TV) as a commission. I have looked into it: Pasadena Community Access Corp. is no commission.
Unlike most of the other so-called commissions, PCAC does not advise the city. To the contrary, the City Council and the city manager have bluntly refused to consult with the PCAC Board of Directors regarding the many major breaches and developments in the 12-year-old cable franchise.
Distinct from many of those listed as commissions, PCAC actually does something besides meet and talk; it “operates [the] public access TV channel.”
But PCAC doesn’t get from City Hall “its own staffer and a secretary” to help with board meetings, agendas, as the article suggests. The city has refused PCAC a seat at negotiations concerning PCAC’s raison d’etre: the allocation of telecommunication resources around the city, community access funding and the cable franchise.
A commission? No, PCAC is an unloved child, a product of premarital passions in the long, steamy love affair between City Hall and the cable TV operators. As the first offspring of this romance, PCAC is the rightful heir, but this embarrassing love child is kept out of view, left to sleep in the barn and live meekly on scraps.
DAVID R. FERTIG Pasadena
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
