Alerts: Obama, Council rules, Mr. Kidd, Channel 19

Don’t ever believe President Obama isn’t giving the Newark Tea Party a serious read. Two days ago I wrote about Newark’s lack of jobs Newark Remains Unstimulated

Today’s Washington Post headline: “Obama to focus on job growth in Ohio.” Ta Da!

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Rules are for suckers - Right, City Council?
Ohio law requires three readings of proposed legislation, Newark by virtue of its “home rule” Charter requires but two. Many ordinances, however, are passed on the first reading because they are claimed to be “emergencies” though exactly what the “emergency” is normally remains murky at best. Never mind the Charter requires Council to “clearly specify the necessity of the emergency.”

Also, Council again played fast and loose with the public money entrusted to it when it awarded without competitive bidding a contract to Claggett & Sons to work on the company’s own property.

Competitive bidding for projects of $25,000 or more is required by the Charter, but this routinely is defined as unnecessary by the votes of six Council members. The Claggett project is estimated at $35,000-$50,000.

Claggett is a good landscaping contractor who has performed perfectly on a couple small jobs for me, and would be my choice for the next one. Likely the city won’t go wrong by awarding this job to Claggett. But we’ll never know because the rules don’t apply here.

This points to the need for tighter rules to ensure that expediency and convenience stop being overriding objectives of Council members and the Council president. Those tighter rules could be a project of a Charter Review if Council would provide for it.

Meantime, if any citizen should feel Council is abusing bidding requirements a complaint should be filed with Mary Taylor, Auditor of State.

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Keep your eye on Mr. Kidd
Ronnie Kidd, the Heath resident who led the charge against Reflex traffic cameras, hasn’t retired. For one thing, he was a key player in Mansfield’s decision to ignore Redflex’s pitch to install cameras in that city. Here’s how he described some of it in a note to me 1/20/10:

“Last night I drove to Mansfield for its Safety Committee meeting, Caucus and Council meeting. The 3rd reading of its camera ordinance was planned. Only one Mansfield resident was there to protest the cameras. The same Redflex rep that did the Zanesville presentation was there to give a slick and gruesome presentation. Including once when a Council member called me to the podium to ask me some questions, I managed to address the Council 4 times. Vote: 8-0 unanimous against the cameras.”

His group of citizens who helped with the traffic camera exile is still meeting. They hope to help citizens of Baytown TX and Arnold MO battle red light cameras. Also, they are expecting to influence decisions by local officials on the county dog pound, the Davis-Shai House and the Rt. 79 median in Heath.

I think this group isn’t far from announcing some sort of formal organization and picking up speed as a very influential force which politicians will rapidly come to respect.

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Webcasts & Channel 19
I was confused by the Advocate report on Council’s discussion of a camera for webcasting meetings on the city’s website. It was my sloppy reading, not the reporter’s fault. Maybe there were others too who didn’t get the difference between webcasting (something new being considered) and cablecasting (what’s already being done on Channel 19). The discussion involved, in part, the cost of a camera for webcasts. City officials were told the cost would be $2,800, but a resident brought an inexpensive digital video camera to demonstrate its adequacy and simplicity. Now let’s see if anyone listens to him.

Speaking of cablecasts on Channel 19, it seems to me that they are more professionally produced now than they have been for many years. Also, that Newark Schools’ Channel 19 has a lot more and a lot better programming in quality and subject matter.

Thing is, if you don’t know when Council meetings are to be shown, and if you don’t know when the other stuff is on, what good is it? Seems to me that the Advocate could easily list Channel 19 programming, if only on its web site.

No, I insist on going out in this weather and driving for pleasure

The forecast is: Snow. Areas of blowing snow. Snow accumulation 3 to 5 inches. Total accumulation of 12 to 15 inches. Highs in the mid 20s. Northwest winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. Chance of snow 100 percent.

Which makes me just want to bitch-slap the next smug little person on TV who reads the above words into a camera and then adds: "Don't drive if you don't have to."

(Review and discuss: Take your siren and stuff it.)

Time Warner: What else is available to Newark customers?

When Time Warner cable company acquired Adelphia it also acquired Adelphia's contract for cable television service to Newark. When that contract comes up for re-negotiation city government needs to be ready.

We should begin now to ask whether we're stuck with Time Warner forever, only because that company has morphed, from one little original cable provider - in one acquisition and/or merger after the other - until Newark has this giant conglomerate ensconced as ruler of our cable system.

A Consumer Reports study has placed Time Warner 13th in a field of 22 for internet service; 11th out of 14 for television service; 10th out of 17 for long-distance phone service; and 8th out of 10 in average score among the largest providers of the three services.

Moreover, Time Warner is changing the way it sets fees, basing them on how much each customer uses the internet. Likely this little quirk is going to come up in the Time Warner contract demands, or maybe that company will just go ahead and do it anyway.

The Business Week report tells a bit about how this might work.

Community cable service is no longer simply a television thing; now it's about TV, Internet, and telephone service. So are we going to be stuck with the middling-at-best services of Time Warner, or are we going to shop around for the best company with the best service and the best rates?

Televised council meetings - at last

A major milestone in city government occurred last evening, when Monday's meeting of City Council was broadcast on Channel 19. There had been no noticeable public announcement.

The tape will be replayed Friday at 9:30 p.m., again on Channel 19.

Technical production quality was excellent, with good camera work, editing, and sound. Really well-done, in my opinion.

Bringing council meetings back to television has been in the planning and deciding stages since 11/7/05 when City Council Democrats pledged in a newspaper ad to return to televised Council meetings. It took two years and 14 days.

That it was unannounced is unfortunate, and presumably when it is announced so will be the story about who made it happen and how. It was not an easy accomplishment, as I understand it.

Council members are to be congratulated for this, a major step in sharing information with the public.

The cure for ESPN-TV is radio

The harder ESPN tries, the more annoying it gets. Consider:

- its cute wannabe-comedian announcers who aren't terribly interested in the action on the field.

- its carney graphics team which pastes Disney over much of what's happening on the field.

- its wasted effort to attune viewers to every other game that is being/has been/will be played.

- its affinity for showcasing stupid people in the stands and press box.

- its infantile slobbering over people it thinks we should care about but we don't.

- its distracting "reports" from its token woman on the sidelines.

ESPN presents a football game as something for which viewers must search by trying to ignore their intrusive, show-biz crap.

Which is why, during the game with Illinois, I turned off ESPN's sound and turned on the radio announcers. They tell you what's going on, and that allowed me ignore ESPN whenever it started to piss me off and I could actually hear football announcers tell me about the game.

As a bonus, the radio guys were a few seconds ahead of ESPN's delayed broadcast, so that by the time I saw it on the screen I already knew the outcome. Ha. Score one for me, ESPN, because I am no longer oppressed by your creative genius.

We came here for the game, stupid

Not infrequently do sports commentators forget their telecasts are not about themselves, but are instead about a sports event. They forget that they are supposed to enhance the viewers' understanding of what's happening.

ESPN needs to take note: Understanding and enjoyment are greatly hampered when the camera is constantly being pulled from the field to whisk the viewer to unrelated replays in far-away stadiums or - more especially - to the broadcast booth to show these comedian-wannabe's commenting on unrelated, unfunny and uninteresting subjects.

I think ESPN won the Heisman for shabby commentary on a sporting event at last night's OSU-Purdue game by constant and ever-more annoying interruptions by ego-driven commentators talking about the wrong things.

OSU - It's all about greed

An article in yesterday's Dispatch hinted at the greed which has become all-pervasive in higher education, and particularly at Ohio State University. It described a $2-million make-over to OSU President Gordon Gee's Bexley home, courtesty of the university foundation.

One of the readers of that article said it best: "Higher education is a greedy, taxpayer subsidized business. It stopped being about education about 30 years ago when those who run the system realized they could make themselves filthy rich while maintaining a image of being "about education."

The reader might have added that this greed is exactly the reason Ohio State football fans are being short-changed on television coverage by Time Warner and the Big 10 poobahs.

Mayor and council ought to supervise Time Warner service

This morning, for the third or fourth time since Time Warner took over from Adelphia, my connection to the Internet has failed. Previously it has been for periods of a few minutes to a few hours.

This follows unacceptably slow e-mail service provided by roadrunner.com wherein mail would show up hours or days after being sent, and some would never show up at all. That problem, I was told by a technical person, had been caused by Time Warner attempting to route too much e-mail through equipment that couldn't handle the volume. It took weeks for that problem to be resolved.

As of now, Time Warner is delivering unacceptable Internet service to Newark. The mayor and council ought to be all over them for this. They work for the city and for the citizens.

Further, next time the contract comes up for bid, there needs to be a genuine bidding process and an assessment of how Time Warner has performed.

Guthrie writes about open government

Newark City Council President Marc Guthrie reemphasizes his traditional stance on open governenment in a column written for The Advocate which has been reproduced as a web page here. Please give it a serious read because every citizen has a stake in the outcome.

Council ignores chance for opening government to citizens

If you've followed along here on the subject of televised Newark City Council meetings and why there aren't any, you already know that it's simply because council members and the mayor don't want them.

At last the public knows why. The matter came up in the June 4, 2007 council meeting and Mr. Uible explained: "The idea of televising council meetings is not a good idea simply because our meetings are too long and I’m afraid televising these meetings might be a little be self-serving. I would not be in support of that plus I think it would be difficult to find someone who wants to pay for it."

Thus does Mr. Uible demonstrate the depth of his desire to have the public more widely informed about who says what during public meetings in which the public's business is being conducted and the public's money is being spent.

As for long meetings, he should be presenting a resolution to have council members' chairs removed from council chambers, which would certainly save everyone's time.

To review, go to Council members avoid public scrutiny - May 14, 2007. and Newark City Council election promises blown off - April 19, 2007. Council has been reminded that its contract with Time-Warner provides for the public-access channels, and members were given the name and the telephone number of the Time-Warner technocrat who is supposed to know everything about such matters.

Marc Guthrie, council president,went on record during the June 4 meeting with this:

"Regarding televising council meetings, I believe these meetings should be televised. Most council meetings of cities our size are televised so citizens can watch the meetings and I don’t think our previously televised meetings were any longer than the ones we are having now, I’m very much in favor of these meetings moving along as quickly as possible but also believe the peoples’ right to watch the public business and will continue to support an effort to get these things on television and encourage the administration to talk with Time Warner and try to get public access to these meetings as soon as possible."

As far as I know, Guthrie is and always has been for open government, for letting the public see what's happening. But one council representative isn't enough.

Members of city council have given their answers to the question of open government by doing nothing to make it happen.

Newark cable service would be affected by a proposal in the state senate

The City of Newark makes a sizable chunk of change in the hidden tax collected for it by Time Warner through what is known as the franchise fee, which is 3 percent of gross.

That tax could be jacked up by a bill in the Ohio Senate that would take from local government entities the power to enter into cable agreements and hand it over to the state government, but the city profit could be as much as 5 percent.

Though there are many disadvantages to local governments, the hidden tax of 5 percent instead of 3 percent might be a convincing carrot for the state.

Newark uses this tax, according to a resolution passed in March 2001 as follows: 60 percent for city parks, 30 percent for capital improvements; and 10 percent for litter prevention. That may have been changed, but there is no record of it filed with the franchise agreement.

You can read about Senate Bill 117 here.

Also, the Dispatch today published an article about Ohio cities' negative reaction to the proposal.

Ohio Senate Bill 117 proposes to take the regulatory authority for cable television, or "video service" (which probably includes far more than cable TV) from communities like Newark and deposit it in the lap of the state director of commerce.

There would be no more competitive service agreements between cable providers and the Ohio communities they serve. There would be no PUCO authority for oversight. There would be a single political appointee in charge.

This bill would prohibit communities from collecting fees or making any requirements on the providers. Instead it would require the VSP (video service provider) to pay a "quarterly fee" not to exceed 5% percent of gross revenue, and to include that fee in its bills to subscribers. It authorizes the VSP to construct and operate a video service network in, along, across, or on public rights-of-way, and - you guessed it - private property.

It excludes the VSP from paying sales and use taxes and it removes the authority by townships to enter cable service contracts for unincorporated areas.

The bill is sponsored by Jacobson, R. Miller, Spada, Buehrer, Mumper, Niehaus, Stivers, and Mason.

If there is supposed to be an advantage to anyone other than state bureaucrats and multi-national corporations, it isn't evident anywhere in the wording of this bill.

And nowhere have I read about the most important consideration of all - what is best in terms of service to Ohio consumers. Instead, we're hearing only about what is best for government entities - not protection of citizens, but of turf.