Posts tagged city
Bruce Borowsky : Boulder Public Access TV
Aug 30th
What’s After Public Access?
Posted: August 30th, 2011 | Author: Bruce Borowsky | Filed under: Community, Film/Video Production | Tags: Public Access TV, storytelling, Video Production | No Comments »
Remember when we were promised 500 channels on TV? Well, it’s funny; now that it’s here, I’m wishing they would take some away. It seems like out of that 500, about 300 of them are “reality” shows of some sort, then another 150 are sports channels, and the remainder show back-to-back episodes of “Law & Order” or “CSI.” Whatever happened to programming of the people, by the people?
Back in the day (meaning about 20 years ago), there was this thing called Public Access television. It was where Zach and I, and many people we work with now, got their start in professional video production. It was a place where you could make a TV show about anything you wanted, and then have it broadcast to the whole city. For free. Did I mention it could be about anything you wanted?
Public Access TV was where you could find people talking about their cultures, their communities, their individuality. There were no class wars, because it was a level playing field: everyone had access to the same equipment, and it was all shown on the same channel. What mattered was how you told your story. And boy, were there a lot of stories! Living in San Francisco in the late 1980′s, there were shows being produced by everyone in that colorful community: on any given day, you’d see Hmong stories, Laotian stories, Vietnam veteran stories – it was a gold mine, a treasure trove of community-based TV programming.
In those days, I used to volunteer on a show called The Doghouse. I was shown how to operate one of the three video cameras in the studio, and then all of a sudden, we’re broadcasting live to the whole city. There’s a great feeling of excitement when working on a live TV show – any mistakes you make are seen immediately, there’s no editing. So it would always be fun, during my several month tenure on that show, to see and hear the wild things guests would do, especially frequent guest-host Jello Biafra, who always had something fun to talk about.
When I moved to Boulder a little over 20 years ago, I started hanging out in the little Public Access facility here, volunteering on a variety of shows, meeting people, learning new equipment. There was a great energy, and it was exciting to see what people were doing in a town a lot smaller than San Francisco. Like most cities, the City of Boulder has a franchise agreement with Comcast, and as part of that agreement, Comcast would provide three TV channels, along with funding (equipment) for those channels! Those channels were to be for what is known as “PEG” programming: Public, Educational, and Government.
Alas, these days in Boulder, Public Access is no more. For a variety of reasons, the wonderful Public Access channel we used to enjoy here is dead. Somehow it got absorbed into the Government channel and the Education channel, so unfortunately people have to go to neighboring cities who still have a local station.
However, one could give the argument that, now in the 21st century, the Internet has made a “TV channel” irrelevant. Now one can make that same program – about anything they want – and the world can watch it, not just a small town. BDA tries to fill the many gaps of Public Access by offering the Filmmaking Incubator that gets people to collaborate on a new short video project every month, a greenscreen production studio at well-below-market rates, and high-quality, professional trainingat very affordable prices.
Since the City actually still gets the money from the franchise fee (it’s just not used for Public Access), perhaps one day BDA will even have equipment to check out to people for free! Boulder Digital Arts would LOVE to be able to do that; as we have the perfect existing infrastructure to make it happen pretty easily. Maybe tell your Boulder City Councilperson, or the Boulder City Manager, if you think it’s a good idea. Maybe they might agree – weirder things have happened in Boulder!
Bruce Borowsky, Co-Founder
Boulder Digital Arts
www.boulderdigitalarts.com
www.bruceborowsky.com
Funding requests sought for 2012 Community Events Fund
Aug 30th
The City of Boulder Human Relations Commission is now accepting funding requests for its 2012 Community Event Fund. This fund is a source of financial support for community-based events. Funding is limited specifically to public events that encourage education, youth involvement and respect and appreciation for communities in Boulder. Objectives of the fund are to enable members of Boulder’s diverse communities to celebrate events significant to them as well as to provide the general population with opportunities to participate in events organized by members of Boulder’s diverse range of cultures. All events supported by the fund must be free admission and open to the public.
Organizations are eligible for grants with a maximum amount of $1,500 for each event. An additional $100 is available for translation of promotional materials into Spanish.
Applications must be received by 5:00 p.m., Sept. 30, 2011. No late applications will be accepted.
Funding guidelines are available on the city’s web site:
or by calling Carmen Atilano, community relations and office of human rights manager, at 303-441-3141.
Mark Gelband Platform for Boulder City Council
Aug 29th
I am proud to announce my candidacy for November’s Boulder City Council election. Thanks to all of you who quickly stepped up and signed my petition to get on the ballot. The real work begins now. We have eight short weeks to get the message out and your emotional, organizational, and financial support is critical to my success. Boulder needs a new voice on council. There is a growing chasm between the city’s aging leadership and the young families, young professionals, creative class and students who represent the future of Boulder.
Perhaps, some of you are thinking: Why did I receive this e-mail when I don’t live in Boulder, don’t know your platform, or don’t even know you all that well?
The easy answer is that I am reaching out to folks with whom I have felt a connection in my life. Whether you live in Boulder or not, I can still benefit greatly from your financial support, if you can afford the contribution and believe in me personally or in my vision for the city. Detailed contribution information is included at the end of this e-mail.
For those of you who need more information before committing your support, here are the critical issues that constitute my platform.
Open Space Access
The aging hippies currently running the show look nothing like the younger, progressive versions of themselves that supported citizen initiatives to create the Blue Line in 1959 and the Open Space program in 1967. We owe them for their past foresight, but their vision today is nothing like it once was. They’ve recently begun a campaign to “reclaim” shared recreational land with the mindset that we are loving nature “to death .” Current Council is prejudiced against dog owners and mountain bikers, with an anti-recreation mentality. Much of the open space we have all paid for is off-limits, with little or no access. Open Space is house poor with 47% of its budget spent on debt service. Why are we buying land in neighboring Jefferson County when we cannot even maintain the most precious resources outside our door? We need to refocus our priorities and better manage our open space, but the solution is not to deny access to the many people who have chosen Boulder as their home for its recreational opportunities.
Core City Services
Current council is challenged to manage a single council meeting, let alone the breadth of our core city services. We currently have a $700,000,000 dollar backlog in deferred maintenance projects and, yet, these folks seem to prioritize efforts such as prairie dog relocation, the minute alteration of snow shoveling ordinances to which they themselves are unable to adhere, and endless pontification about Arizona’s Immigration laws. We need leaders who will fix our potholed streets, who will plow side streets in the winter so that children can safely get to school, and who will address the traffic problems around town, libraries, public safety, decaying infrastructure and the growing homeless problem.
Homelessness
Boulder bears a disproportionate share of the county’s homeless problem. The county homeless shelter is in the city, and the city has become a “convention center” for chronic vagrancy and associated crime. We need to distinguish the working poor and the transitionally homeless in our community, and to ensure that they are first in line to receive the resources to help feed and clothe them, get them jobs and into affordable housing. But let’s confront chronic vagrancy head-on by actually enforcing the existing loitering, panhandling and public intoxication laws that are already on the books.
Overregulation
People in glass houses should not overregulate. Current Council “manages” meetings by restricting public input; this limiting approach to community involvement is just the tip of the iceberg. The council has now spent several decades implementing solutions in search of problems. As the city regulates and regulates and regulates, it continues to squeeze the working class. Their growing list of regulations is hurting those of us least able to afford it. For example, the city has 100 of 10,000 homes that are larger than 5,000 square feet (50% of them built prior to 1940) and, yet, our council has spent countless hours in the last few years developing an onerous, inflexible McMansion ordinance that has only served to ‘handcuff’ young families interested in expansion without relocation. The council’s “obsession” with controlling individual choices in the absence of a viable long-term city plan has led to a scary sort of Big Brother government.
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the key issues that are facing Boulder and about proactive paths toward solutions. If you are unable to support me financially, maybe you would consider hosting a meet-and-greet, spreading the word about my candidacy, putting a yard sign up, or simply sending the campaign some good energy.
If you are in a position to help financially, Boulder campaign finance reform limits individual contributions to $100 per person. If you have a husband, wife or partner, and can contribute more than $25, it helps to receive two checks, one from each of you. This allows me to better access city matching funds, should I choose to go that route. I am currently working on a campaign website and should have it finished in the coming week or so. Until that time, I can only accept checks – payable to:
Gelband for Council – A Good Sign
Please mail checks to 505 College Ave, Boulder, CO 80302.
If you live locally and want to donate to my campaign, call me at 303-522-1192 and we can meet. Same limits and rules apply to locals.