PORT TOWNSEND — The president of a citizen panel that oversees operation of Port Townsend’s community-access TV station is concerned the city could eliminate the station’s general manager position at PTTV.
“We’ve got to have a station manager,” said Karen Nelson, president of the Public Education in Government committee board.
“It’s important to have one person in charge of the switcher so quality is uniformly professional.”
That has been PTTV General Manager Gary Lemons’ role for the past nine years.
Lemons, who was instrumental in building and managing PTTV’s production and coordinating its programming, is leaving the station by year’s end to pursue a City Council seat and other professional ventures.
Nelson said her worries arose when she saw a proposal from Mayor Mark Welch to make PTTV administration, maintenance and operation, engineering and distribution the responsibility of city of Port Townsend Information Technologies services.
Welch on Wednesday said his intent is not to eliminate the station manager’s position, but rather to return the station to a two-person management team, as it was more than 20 years ago when Welch, who is also a broadcasting teacher at Port Townsend High School, helped found what became PTTV.
“The goal here is always to maintain the autonomy and integrity of access,” said Welch.
“The goal here is also to grow the station and give it more tools,” such as being able to broadcast online.
PTTV is broadcast on Millennium Digital Media’s channels 47 and 48. Both can be viewed in East Jefferson County, but not in Clallam County.
Welch’s memo
Welch said in his memo that, “Under the auspices of city administration, IT services would oversee the day-to-day technical and administrative functions currently carried out by the station manager,” referring to the position that now pays $46,000 a year to Lemons.
“These duties would include system design, scheduling of programming, maintenance of equipment, capital planning and acquisition, and program distribution.”
Funding for this would be provided through the franchise fee, PEG fee for hardware acquisition only and/or a portion of the 6 percent utilities tax, which is under City Council consideration.