By Dalia Diaz
Lawrence Community Access Television (LCAT) had an open house on January 29, 2019 and many residents attended with the intention of learning about the operation, what it should be offering to the community and an answer to the transmission problems that we receive in our homes.
I did not attend for obvious reasons. My presence would have triggered reactions that are not healthy for my blood pressure. I know what was to be found in the studio and the rest of the facilities. What was not expected is the feedback some of my friends related to me.
Aware that LCAT had purchased the building, they were shocked at the conditions. From the lack of tidiness to frayed carpeting, it didn’t appear to be at par with other broadcast facilities.
Wilfredo Peralta described what he found this way: “Neglect in the furniture, set design material in the room, tools, paint peeled in the skylight. The lack of integration between the institution and the community became obvious. “
And very cleverly, Wilfredo realized that the entity is handled in a hermetic way. “I expected to find in a mural or digital screen data such as: historical review, names and photos of members of its board, consolidated summary of income and expenses during the last fiscal year, plans and short-term objectives in terms of programming and dissemination.”
He could also realize that the activity had a poor attendance due to the lack of promotion. “The Spanish-speaking public was the minority and apparently this timid ‘open house’ effort was just a way of keeping up appearances. In short: a failure,” he concluded.
Instead of giving a speech or responding to questions on important issues, they prepared a PowerPoint presentation pretending that it covered what was necessary for the guests to know.
Lawrence Community Access Television was surreptitiously set up by Mayor Michael Sullivan and James Ross, member of the Cable Advisory Commission, of which I was also member. In October of 2004, we were surprised with the news that there was no more Cable Advisory Commission for our residents to express their discontent with the cable company, ceasing to meet.
The City signed a ten-year contract with Comcast and Mr. Ross selected the members of the Board of Directors made up mostly by people with no television knowledge.
LCAT is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization that, according to the PowerPoint slide said, “…that was organized for the purpose of operating, maintaining, and managing the Public and Government cable television access facilities…”
The contract with Comcast calls for 3 channels: Public, Education and Government (PEG) but the funding, which is approximately $200,000 each year and Verizon signed off later with around $100,000 to LCAT and the funding for Education was kept separate and goes directly to the school department.
Part of their commitment is to have the board meetings in public and their Annual Meeting each October should be advertised in the local press and open to the public. That has never happened and their meetings continue to be secret. Worst yet, they don’t have to account to the mayor, city council or the public about their budget or operations. All illegal!
The amount of money allocated to Lawrence comes from the contribution made by all Verizon and Comcast subscribers which is equivalent to 3.48% (1.48 for Public and Government and 2% for the School Department.) Check your own cable bill and you will see a charge for PEG channels.
Andover, Methuen and Haverhill get 5%.
That funding goes to salaries and equipment necessary for transmissions of Channels 8 and 22 on Comcast, also 40 and 41 on Verizon. We all know the sound and picture quality have always been a disaster and recently non-existent. Some of the slides named 1 employee full-time and 4 part-time and a list of producers but what they didn’t mention was that those are church services and they are pastors.
They said that during 2017, they had “1678 shows for 1061 hours of video and 683 were first runs.” What they didn’t say is that the majority of the programs are “bicycled” tapes from other cities and towns because local production is almost non-existent.
Meanwhile, The Feast of the Three Saints, Semana Hispana, Bread and Roses, Michael Amante in Concert, etc. are repeated all year long, year after year. About two years ago I remember watching a Santa Parade with City Councilor Marie Gosselin. She stopped doing the Santa Parade over ten years ago.
Elections come and go and the residents are kept in the dark because there are no programs directed to educating the community on who the candidates are, what they stand for or the meaning of questions appearing on the ballot.
Visitors that night wanted to know how they can produce a local show and instead were turned off by what they saw. Only City Councilor Ana Levy was offered that opportunity. Let’s see if they follow through with that – once they fix the quality of broadcast.
According to Carlos Morillo, “It was obvious that this had another purpose and it was not really about opening the doors to us.”
