Trustees OK Deal to Bring Public TV to Oxnard College

A move designed to quell a yearlong cable battle may also expand the city’s public access television programming and boost Oxnard College’s broadcast curriculum, educators and city officials said Wednesday.

Under an agreement unanimously approved by the county Community College District Board of Trustees late Tuesday, the city will form a nonprofit corporation to support public access television at Oxnard College.

In exchange for use of college resources, the corporation will let educators use equipment purchased with $80,000 in seed money from two local cable companies.

“I think it opens up a lot of opportunities,” said Norman Nagel, president of the board of trustees.

Under city franchise agreements, Jones Intercable and GTE Media Ventures, the city’s competing cable operators, will each give the new nonprofit corporation $40,000 initially and a minimum of $22,500 a year for operating funds. Jones previously ran the city’s public access station out of its offices.

Oxnard residents will be able to use the facilities to produce programs for the public access station--Channel 17 on the Jones Intercable system and Channel 10 on the GTE system.

The agreement should improve public access programming, said Dennis Scala, an analyst in the city manager’s office.

“I think between the city and its facilities and the college and its facilities, we could come up with better programming than we have now,” Scala said. “The city and the college also want to work in cooperation for additional programming on the government channel and perhaps help the college develop additional programming.”

Kitty Merrill, a television production specialist at the college, said the agreement will give students access to new equipment.

“Doing television on a college budget is sometimes a strain,” she said. “I think this will be a nice way to bring in more resources.”

The new partnership is related to a recent settlement between the city and Jones Intercable. The cable provider sued Oxnard last year after the city signed a franchise agreement with GTE that Jones officials said was unfair.

Although the suit was later dropped, support for public access television was a major sticking point in franchise negotiations between the city and Jones Intercable, with Jones arguing that GTE’s 1997 city franchise agreement did not require the company to help support the public access programming system that Jones Intercable built and operated.

As part of a compromise settlement signed late last month, Jones and GTE agreed to share production costs for the new public access station at Oxnard College.

Leroy Robinson, professor of television communications and production at Oxnard College, said he hopes the partnership will expand public access for underserved populations in Oxnard, especially Latinos.

“This is just one more opportunity for Latinos to become included,” he said. “I think it’s important to recognize a community or constituency that does speak Spanish.”

Educators say the agreement will increase the college’s visibility in the community and give its students an important training ground.

“We’ll have the opportunity to use it, and that helps our students,” said board President Nagel. “It also gives students a chance to see how the process is done.”