The Political Whore

The saga of Speak Up Tampa Bay’s attempts to get back onto Hillsborough County cable channels continues. You may recall that county commissioners cut funding for the public access producers last year, ostensibly to save money in a tight budget year but likely more nakedly an attempt to crack down on programming and speech that the commissioners aren’t real fond of.

Speak Up Executive Director Louise Thompson says now the county wants her nonprofit to pay back at least some of the nearly $300,000 the county gave the group to buy a production truck, used to tape and broadcast remote events, speeches and other independent programming. The truck was used 52 times in 2006, according to Speak Up’s annual report, including to televise UT women’s basketball games and animal friends programming.

In an Oct. 24 letter, County Administrator Pat Bean said the repayment could be monetary or non-monetary, including the promise to allow residents outside of Tampa who live in the county to continue to use Speak Up production facilities. Thompson countered with an offer to allow non-Tampa residents to use Speak Up facilities, including the truck, to produce shows in exchange for a dedicated cable channel and the right to charge those residents a fee, since Speak Up no longer receive county funding.

To date, Thompson reports, he has had no response. Thompson pleaded her case to county commissioners in an e-mail today:

Dear Commissioners:

Please see attached: [1] a letter we received from Pat Bean dated October 24 [postmarked a week later] asking us to make an offer on the truck that could include our serving the residents of unincorporated Hillsborough County; and [2] our November 16 response to Bean which includes a proposed new contract in which we would agree to serve those residents by charging them user fees, and, more importantly, in which the County would guarantee that the channel capacity continues to be made available to the public. We asked for a response by December 4.

Also, see below pasted in both the emails sent transmitting our November 16 response to Bean and a December 19 reminder that we’ve been waiting a long time for Bean’s response to it.

To date, we’ve not heard back from Bean. This confirms our belief that de-funding the channel was not really about money but, instead, a way to silence government criticism on our channels.

You can download a .pdf of Bean’s and Thompson’s correspondence here and here. Bean was not in the office this holiday week and could not be reached for comment. But Deputy County Administrator Wally Hill did get back to CL and told us that the county is not dragging its feet on the proposal. Instead, it was waiting for an independent appraisal of the production truck to be completed before it decides whether Thompson’s offer works or not. Hill would not say whether county officials can live with the production fee idea or giving Speak Up a dedicated county cable channel. A draft of the appraisal is completed but no timetable is set to complete the negotiations with Speak Up, Hill added.

ADDENDUM: I neglected to add our usual disclaimer on this, that Creative Loafing’s CEO Ben Eason is a longtime board member of Speak Up Tampa Bay and our general counsel, David M. Snyder, also provides legal advice to the public access group.

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