PORT TOWNSEND — Drastic changes to PTTV will be discussed at Monday night’s City Council meeting, yet ironically the meeting won’t be broadcast live on the public access cable television station.
The 6:30 p.m. council session will be the first held at Fort Worden State Park as City Hall is prepared for rehabilitation work. The Fort Worden building is not set up for live broadcasts.
Instead of live on Monday night, the session will be taped and shown Tuesday night on Channel 48.
On the Monday night agenda is a letter from City Clerk Pam Kolacy suggesting that all live broadcasts, including those filmed in the PTTV studio at the high school, go dark Sept. 1.
Kolacy is also suggesting that the council end the $46,000 a year contract with station manager and sole PTTV employee Gary Lemons as a cost-cutting move.
Kolacy is the city’s point person with the public access station.
Access TV’s future
PTTV member James Fritz said Friday that the changes could amount to the end of worthwhile public access television in Jefferson County.
Fritz and nearly a dozen other people contacted the Peninsula Daily News on Friday and Saturday concerned about possible changes to PTTV.
The station reaches about 4,500 Millennium Digital Media cable subscribers from Port Townsend to Brinnon.
Two channels are offered by PTTV — Channel 47, which features citizen-produced programming, and Channel 48, which is the government and education channel.
Kolacy made the recommendations in response to a request from City Manager David Timmons to look at the cost of city contracts, like the one with Lemons.
Funding for PTTV is dwindling, she wrote in the July 15 letter.