The corporate purpose of those forced to organize as a separate ‘public’ access channel in 1993 which became the nonprofit Wallingford Public Access Association, Inc. was clearly not in accordance with the intent of enabling free speech of citizens to speak to their community with resources established via the Cable Act and other statutes and regulations.
All manner of support for the creation and distribution of noncommercial community media and fulfillment of responsibilities within related designations associated with managing sufficient resources inclusive of cable access channel(s) to facilitate meaningful community access within the community of Wallingford, CT.
WHEREAS, Public, Education and Government (PEG) access is excluded from broadcast regulations as an alternative to broadcast known as narrowcast but is designated for distribution by the Cable Act as within the basic cable service tier as the transmission of broadcast signals; and
WHEREAS, the criteria of value and editorial control is the purview of the local individual or entity, i.e., Access User, producing non-commercial content as further established in CT Public Act 95-150 regarding reasonable needs of the community; and
WHEREAS pursuant to a separation agreement initiated out of the Office of Mayor, Town of Wallingford refers to “separate from town operated cable access channels” among the three town specific channels designated to Wallingford by franchise area agreements established in accordance with provisions of the 1984 Cable Act; and
WHEREAS, although within the past decade multiple proposals to re-integrate PEG services and channels to improve overall resource management to positively impact tax-payer contributions in fulfillment of the community’s reasonable needs for PEG have been put forth by WPAA after two decades channel management remains disbursed between Office of Mayor, Board of Education and WPAA; and
WHEREAS, in Docket #08-04-09 the franchising authority re-affirmed WPAA as the entity responsible for providing Community Access in Wallingford with designation as “Cable Access Provider” (CAP) [Conn. Agencies Regs. §§ 16-331a-1 to -13. Community Access Support – Definitions]; and
WHEREAS, as the CAP the scope of WPAA includes provisions of TV production resources, a studio, technical assistance, training and outreach in a fair and equitable manner for prospective PEG Access Users.