Cable Panel Alleges Deceit About Forum

Members of the city’s cable television advisory committee have fired off an angry letter to the City Council, charging that an organizer of Wednesday’s political forum at the Civic Arts Plaza lied to them while applying to have the debate recorded for public access television.

According to the letter, a representative of the company that organized the forum told the committee that all 10 City Council candidates were invited to the event when in fact only four had been asked to take part.

“I personally feel that I was snookered,” said committee Vice Chairwoman Cathy Koch, refuting claims that a mix-up had occurred. “I didn’t misunderstand what I heard.”

Moreover, the letter claims that Thousand Oaks officials tried to cover up the dispute to avoid controversy rather than holding a new forum. By that time, the council had already approved the committee’s recommendation that the city approve the event.

“Our objections arise solely because the recommendation of the committee and approval by the council were obtained under false pretenses,” the letter said. “This has now been compounded by the machinations of the staff to avoid confronting the issue directly.

“In doing so,” the letter continues, “we feel they have not only rewarded dishonesty but planted the seeds of future difficulties by establishing a dangerous precedent.”

As part of its franchise agreement with the city, Ventura County Cablevision offers a free mobile camera crew service to Thousand Oaks residents. But the service is only available 18 times a year, and members of the cable committee say they may not have awarded the service to organizers of the forum if committee members had known it was an exclusive event.

According to the letter, three committee members specifically asked Tina Carlson of the Emerald Group, the company that organized the forum, whether all 10 candidates running for the two council openings had been invited.

The letter states that Carlson said at last month’s committee meeting that all 10 would be invited. It later became obvious, however, that only four candidates--Councilman Mike Markey, Planning Commissioner Linda Parks, marketing consultant Dan Del Campo and retired auto dealership manager Marshall Dixon--were asked to participate.

The other six council candidates are salesman Nick Quidwai, UCLA student Tom Lee, retired mechanic Norm Jackson, children’s court investigator Ramaul Rush, civil engineer David Seagal and mobile carwash entrepreneur Lance Winslow.

Carlson, who has taken part in numerous public access TV shows, strongly denies ever telling the committee that each candidate had been invited.

“It was a misunderstanding,” said Carlson, who on Monday apologized to the committee for any possible mix-up. “It hurts my feelings for someone to even suggest that I would try to deceive them like this.

“There was so much controversy with the forum to begin with,” she added. “It turned out to be such a success, and I hate to see things like this taking away from what was an honorable, courageous task.”

By the time organizers announced the Emerald Forum would only include four candidates, the committee had already recommended that the City Council approve the event. Committee members felt they had been deceived.

But that was only part of the reason committee members wrote the letter.

After the cable panel notified Thousand Oaks’ Media Services Office that the committee would like to hold a new hearing to review the application a second time, city officials notified the committee that it had no grounds to do so. In the opinion of the city’s communications consultant and the city attorney’s office, the job of the cable committee is to judge whether an applicant is eligible for the service, not what the committee wants to televise.

“Needless to say, we find this twisted bit of logic specious, at the very least,” the letter said. “It is a blatant attempt to bootstrap a result from an unfortunate array of facts. Why bother to have anyone submit applications? . . . . Simply direct applicants to the cable operator. All they have to know is how to count to 18.”

Shirley Cobb, who heads the Media Services Office, which oversees the city’s public televisions programs, said the cable committee can impose guidelines for the mobile van, such as allowing it to be used for only three political forums a year. But since no such guidelines are now in place, the committee had no grounds to reconsider its earlier decision on the forum, she said.

“I wasn’t at that meeting, but there are a lot of different versions of what occurred,” Cobb said. “It’s just regrettable that there was such a misunderstanding. We have so many exciting things going on with public access TV.”