July 23, 2006 Televising Commission Meetings in Full

How much government/education time should Hamblen County government be allowed to use on the Charter/Walters State government/education channel?

Televising commission meetings began in December 2002 and has greatly increased public awareness of what the commission does.

Initially, several commissioners said no one would watch commission meetings. Now those same commissioners say that people are watching, that they want to see the entire business portion of the meeting, and that some people don't want to see any public comments.

The Hamblen County Commission continues to be the only local governmental body that tapes and televises its meetings on the local government/ educational channels on Charter and Comcast.

Comcast provides full use of its government/ education channel to the residents it serves in east Hamblen County. Comcast apparently broadcasts commission meetings from start to finish regardless of how long or how short they may be.

Charter, however, does not really control its government/ education channel. Commission in 2002 found out that the county's franchise contract with Charter, for some reason, gave control of the government/ education channel to the City of Morristown.

The City never used the Charter government/ education channel to broadcast city council meetings. When the Hamblen County Commission asked in 2002 to use the Charter government/ education channel to televise commission meetings, the City handed over control of the government/ education channel to Walters State.

Walters State decided to allot only four hours/week to Hamblen County government for the airing of county commission meetings (Tuesday 9-11 pm and Saturday 9-11 pm).

A few commission meetings have run longer than 2 hours. When that happens, Walters State apparently cuts the broadcast off when the 2-hout time limit is up. That creates a problem for viewers.

Recently, Commission Chairman Joe Spoone with vocal support from Commissioners Nancy Phillips and Doyle Fullington proposed a solution that involves the editing of the tape of each meeting to try and keep it within the 2-hour limit imposed by Walters State.

Spoone proposed that public comments continue to be heard at the beginning of the actual meeting, but he asked that the tape of the meeting be edited with public comments placed at the end of the tape.

The Spoone proposal was approved at the July 20 commission meeting. I voted "no."

I have firmly stood for the right of the people---whether I liked or agreed with their comments or not--- to address the commission.

Public comments are part of the meeting, and the entire commission meeting should be televised regardless of whether public comments are at the beginning or at the end of the tape.

There is a very simple solution to this problem. There are 168 hours in a week. County government is currently "allowed" to use only four hours/week.

Let's think about this. Wouldn't a better solution be to ask for more government/education time to be given to Hamblen County government so that the entire meeting is always shown along with public comments (either at the beginning or end)?

Commissioner Phillips agreed to talk with Walters State about airing commission meetings in full---from start to finish---regardless of the time factor. If Walters State agrees, this might mean that occasionally county government would need an extra government/ education hour or two some weeks.

I hope that Walters State will agree that Hamblen County government should be allowed to use 5-6 hours per week out of the 168 government/ education hours that are available in order to air commission meetings in their entirety.

I even hope that the commission will eventually ask for 10 hours/week so that committee meetings can be televised, too. That's where the extensive discussion of issues takes place.

Let's see. With just ten hours/week, Hamblen County Government could show its commission meetings in their entirety twice a week and its committee meetings in their entirety once a week.

Ten hours out of 168 hours in a week. That's 6% of the week to Hamblen County Government. 94% of the week to other programming.

It sure seems fair to me to ask that a government/ education channel be used at least 6% of the time for the airing of county government commission and committee meetings!