Tampa Public Access Organization Files Lawsuit Against Hillsborough County

I've been trying for a while to figure a compelling story on the fight local public access TV producers have been waging in Hillsborough and Pinellas to survive in the face of the decision to end their funding by their respective county governments.

Today, Speak Up Tampa Bay, the Hillsborough-based public access group, made it a whole lot easier, filing a lawsuit against Hillsborough County for its decision to end funding for their program Sept. 20 and bar them from accessing the facility starting last Sunday.

"The vote to terminate Speak Up’s funding was just a pretext for unconstitutional censorship of protected speech," said David M. Snyder, counsel for Speak Up, in a press release they sent out just hours ago. "Terminating public access funding of $355,443 while maintaining more than $2 million for government access television, is the government playing favorites based who is speaking and what they are saying. It is a violation of the First Amendment.”

It's something I wrote about on this blog regarding Pinellas County's system and something I hoped to come back to very soon. Their biggest problem: most TV viewers don't watch cable access, and likely don't value the programming much. Proponents say it is the least cable companies can do for the community in exchange for access to all the land where their fiber optic lines are strewn.

I say, Why should government get the benefit of millions in cable fees to support a channel telling us how great our local government is? Almost seems like a consolation prize for the new system where cable regs are set by the state instead of local municipalities.

I'm going to try hard to pull together a story on this in the coming days. Until then, here's Speak Up's press release:

Speak Up Files First Amendment Lawsuit Against Hillsborough County

[TAMPA] Speak Up Tampa Bay Public Access Television, Inc. today filed a lawsuit in
Federal court [Case No. 8:07-CV-1782] against the Hillsborough Board of County
Commissioners and Hillsborough County. The lawsuit asks the court to intervene by
enjoining the County from terminating the non-profit’s funding and access center
management contract as a result of its cable-cast of protected speech and programming.

The suit comes after the BOCC terminated the rights of its residents to use the public access
facility after September 30, 2007.

Speak Up Executive Director Louise Thompson added, "As a result of the September 20,
2007, vote to terminate our funding, Hillsborough County’s unincorporated area residents will
no longer be able to broadcast their viewpoints on our channels. Neither will they be able
take advantage of training, equipment, facilities and services offered at Tampa Bay
Community Network.”

Comments

[big bob]

big Al, you are an Idiot, enjoy your bliss.

[Big Al]

I don't know how Public Cable Access Producers think they have a right to Produce their own TV shows that are paid by the citizens through a cable TV tax.

Here in Pinellas County, Public Access Channel 21, programing ended at 12am today 10/1/2007. At least they ended the channel with that cool HipHop/Rap group with the catchy music, although I didn't get the Fashion Show during the episode.

I know I only paid cable tv 39 cents a month, it's not alot. And I guess I did get my moneys worth, with shows like movie review and Sam Simpson, but I still feel that we are no longer in the Wayne's World Era. That was 15 years ago. There are soo many internet sites that offer free access for Producers to show their product to the public, local and world wide.

With that said, I do not feel either the County Government Channel or the Government School Channel have enough quality programing to fill an 8 hour block of programing. With that said I would like funding of the education programs to be given to the cities that the schools reside in, Examples Clearwater, Dunedin, St. Pete, Tarpon schools programing should be on local channel 15 throughout the county.

Unincorporated areas with schools should have access to channel 18 from 4pm until 10pm, when most kids are home. After 10pm on channel 18, there needs to be a fun watching channel, for Producers who will avoid hardcore Religion and Politics and instead create entertainment for the majority of Americans viewers who want things Fair and Balanced