Warrant Article 14 and Cable Shows

Why is this so difficult to find? Has anyone looked in the new warrant articles
up for the Oct town meeting?

Anybody have any comments especially for article 14 dealing with the Comcast
Cable license?

Again The town Warrant quote: "monitoring compliance of the cable operator with
the franchise agreement; or (iii) preparing for renewal of the franchise
license."

Town Warrant article:

"Access and Cable Related
To see if the Town will vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts General
Law
Chapter 44, Section 53F 3/4 in order to establish a separate revenue account to
be
known as the "PEG Access and Cabie Related Fund", into which will be deposited.
**********
>From the cable show discussion.

Jonathan Siegel, I am not sure if I responded to this, but in your posting, you
asked if I had seen what Linda posted on September 16 to her June 24 posting
about AF-TVs rules and how the Rizolis did not meet them. Yet I have not seen
posted here what their actual offense was in regard to AF-TV other than the
issue of content, which indeed is not to be scrutinized or judged for the
purpose of removal, but rather is to be relegated to Safeharbor time, which you
admitted.

Yes the board has a great deal of discretion in handling the consequence for
"major" violations, whatever those are. You stated also that the best way to
avoid the consequences is to follow the rules. I find that this is often
extremely ambiguous and merely subject to the interpretation of those who wish
to spin it anyway they wish depending on who their target is. In this case it
seems the target is the Rizolis.

Keith Wagner, I believe I misspoke or provided incomplete information , that I
was not referring to article 14 of the Constitution, or article 14, which is
also known as the warrant article 14, but rather the Comcast rule 6.14, which
deals with the issue of censorship for their affiliated stations like AF–TV and
their rules dealing with content and Safeharbor.

However, you bring up an interesting but disturbing point where you indicated
that the Constitution doesn't apply to individuals or private organizations or
are typically not bound by the Constitution . This is extremely disturbing and
I don't believe correct either . Individuals, businesses, city, and state
requirements must be and are subject to the Constitution. If the view and
approach is being practiced in Framingham, where the Constitution is being
ignored when relating to individual rights, that definitely needs to be
addressed.

From: Kay Ahlstrom

Anybody have any comments especially for article 14 dealing with the Comcast
Cable license?

"Access and Cable Related
To see if the Town will vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts
General Law
Chapter 44, Section 53F 3/4 in order to establish a separate revenue account
to be
known as the "PEG Access and Cabie Related Fund", into which will be
deposited.
**********
>From the cable show discussion.

Jonathan Siegel, I am not sure if I responded to this, but in your posting,
you asked if I had seen what Linda posted on September 16 to her June 24
posting about AF-TVs rules and how the Rizolis did not meet them. Yet I have
not seen posted here what their actual offense was in regard to AF-TV other
than the issue of content, which indeed is not to be scrutinized or judged
for the purpose of removal, but rather is to be relegated to Safeharbor
time, which you admitted.

Yes the board has a great deal of discretion in handling the consequence for
"major" violations, whatever those are. You stated also that the best way to
avoid the consequences is to follow the rules. I find that this is often
extremely ambiguous and merely subject to the interpretation of those who
wish to spin it anyway they wish depending on who their target is. <SNIP>

<SNIP>

However, you bring up an interesting but disturbing point where you
indicated that the Constitution doesn't apply to individuals or private
organizations or are typically not bound by the Constitution . This is
extremely disturbing and I don't believe correct either . Individuals,
businesses, city, and state requirements must be and are subject to the
Constitution. If the view and approach is being practiced in Framingham,
where the Constitution is being ignored when relating to individual rights,
that definitely needs to be addressed.

MY RESPONSE
At this point, we have a pile of dust that was, at one time, the bones of
the dead horse that gotten beaten in this FramGov forum.

There is not one piece of information presented above that is pertinent for
me to decide on which way I will vote on this particular article when it
comes up in the Autumn Special Town Meeting that will start October 20,
2015.

What we have with a situation with AF-TV and banned volunteers where they
are claiming that they have their freedom of speech. What about the freedom
of speech on the part of AF-TV? AF-TV nor any other TV station is obligated
to broadcast everything they receive from others. For that matter, they have
the right to reject the application to have a particular show aired for just
about any or no reason. Again, it's AF-TV's right to free speech and AF-TV's
right to free association. In this particular case, AF-TV wish not to
associate with certain individuals and AF-TV has that right to disassociate
themselves from those certain individuals.

William LaBarge
Town Meeting Member, Precinct 16 Chair
I am speaking only for myself and not necessarily for anyone else

Responding to the two emails below and the general thread.

1. Basic Constitutional law. In general, individuals and private
establishments are not constrained by the Constitution. There are indeed laws,
such as the Civil Rights Act, that apply Constitutional precepts to
individuals. The Constitution applies to federal governmental action, and
through the 14th Amendment to actions by state governments (and their political
subdivisions). It does not apply to individual action, except in very limited
ways, e.g. if individual is acting as an agent of the state (wake up Kim Davis)
or if an individual or business is running an establishment of public
accommodation.

The post of the 27th below makes it sound like some odd religion is being
practiced in Framingham. The town is subject to the Constitution. From what I
can find out with a quick search (I have a life) Access Framingham or AFTV is
likely to be subject to the Constitution based on the level of governmental
support, but I could be wrong. However, First Amendment rights are not
absolute.

But to answer the basic question, in general, individuals and private business
and establishments are not subject to Constitutional restraints. And I am a
lawyer and well versed in constitutional law.

2. Boards of Directors. Most corporations appoint their own boards of
directors. No conspiracy theory here. These are pretty standard by-laws.
http://accessfram.tv/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/fpac_bylaws_effective_may_19_2014.pdf

3. I appreciate your passion. We need new comers who are dedicated to making
Framingham a better place. Despite having lived here for neigh on 18 years, I
still feel like a new comer sometimes. Just my humble opinion, but sometimes
it is better to get a full "lay of the land" and an understanding of the
history and background of various folks before diving in with assumptions and
criticisms. I certainly know that some of the things that some people told me
when I first became more involved in the town turned out to be not true and
self-serving of particular individuals.

Perhaps I was overly naive, but particularly if you grew up in a different
area, as I suspect you and I both did (I am a Colorado native) it helps to keep
an open mind and a big salt shaker for the proverbial grain of salt.

Suze Craighead, attorney at law

Rest of post

1) Keith Wagner, you presented some good points, but not about dropping the
discussion concerning the Rizolis. When there is an injustice, which I believe
has occurred and is continually perpetuated on the Rizolis, it must be
addressed and revisited.

I view the Rizolis as a prototype, a testing ground for dissident suppression.
If you can demonize/isolate, marginalize, and criminalize what may be
considered "extreme" opinion, you can control the more mainstream expression.
The goal of every tyranny is dissident silence. It seems that the
AF-TV/Comcast partnership has subscribed to this tactic concerning the Rizolis.

That's why this has become a cause for me. I view this type of behavior as
bullying, when organizations can marginalize individuals like the Rizolis in
defiance of decency, being reasonable and equitable and make it appear to be
that the Rizoli's were the ones that violated the rules when in fact AF-TV has
violated their own rules… particularly concerning cable shows to go to
Safeharbor. This becomes everybody's problem, particularly small towns like
Framingham.

Keith, you asked some very good questions. Regarding the Town meeting and
warrant article 14. These questions need to be asked, especially dealing with
Comcast and AF-TV and their usurping their roles and even justice.

If the problem is the leadership of AF-TV or Comcast, then there needs to be a
change of leadership. As I understand it, article 14 is dealing with funding .
I also understand that businesses and individuals involved in these ventures
get very very interested when it comes to funding. If the organization is
corrupt , and there can be no change in leadership, then it needs to be
dissolved and if a local station is desired by the community, start over. With
this should come "pardons" for everybody who has been targeted by them....
Including especially the reinstatement of the Rizoli cable programs.

2) Suze Craighead, I appreciate your contribution concerning constitutional law
and board of directors issues.

I can't believe that individuals or corporations or whatever minor
functionaries there are can be exempt from constitutional requirements and
constraints. I imagine this type of thing is tested in court.

On the local level, like in dealing with AF-TV/Comcast, they exert certain
powers which suggest privileges that they can bestow on others based on a set
of rules. These rules imply a contract between them and their clients. Both
must adhere to this contract.

With regard to the Rizolis, from all I've read concerning the case, they have
attempted to abide by the contractual rules. However, AF-TV/Comcast have
subverted this process by failing to follow the same rule book, relegating the
Rizolis' cable shows to Safeharbor, unlike what they have done on behalf of
other shows that might've been considered more flagrant. So instead of a safe
harbor destination, the Rizolis' cable shows were removed permanently.

The point is, the rights of individuals when facing abuse of power from larger
organizations will always be general concern and should always be a local
concern.

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Warrant Article 14 and Cable Shows

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