TELECASTING BLACKOUT AT THE MPRB
In the name of “community input,” the Park Board will be dropping six upcoming Park Board meetings from its telecasting schedule if approved by the commissioners at the upcoming April 15 Park Board meeting. The first meeting to be blacked out will be on May 5.
General Manager Don Siggelkow has sent a memo to the commissioners recommending that six regular Park Board meetings be held in the MPRB’s neighborhood rec centers instead of at Park Board headquarters. That means that one-half of the meetings leading up to the November election (six out of twelve) will not be televised unless special arrangements are made. He is asking the Board to approve the schedule at Wednesday’s meeting.
The dates of the blacked out meetings are May 6, June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2 and October 7.
Because technology to accommodate offsite telecasting does exist, it would seem appropriate that the MPRB would make arrangements to make sure that the viewing public is able to view the meetings no matter where they are held.
But if the MPRB chooses not to make the necessary arrangements to televise the offsite Board meetings, then the “community input” should be separated from the Board meetings and the Board meetings should be rescheduled in the MPRB boardroom where they can be televised.
Citizens concerned about the telecasting blackout should contact their Park Board commissioners to express their concerns.
To contact your District Commissioner and three At-Large Commissioners go to: http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=36
CROWN HYDRO–THE MYSTERY
For the past couple of weeks, the lobbyist and spokeswoman for Crown Hydro has been waging a publicity campaign for a presentation that Crown Hydro is scheduled to make at the April 15, 2009, MPRB meeting. The purported purpose of the presentation is to present new expert information about the project to the commissioners.
However, when Park Watch went to the Park Board on April 10 to preview the information that Crown Hydro was required to submit to the MPRB in advance of Wednesday’s meeting, we saw nothing new. The information about the hydropower project that is being presented to the Administration and Finance Committee on Wednesday appears to be the same information that was presented in 2007 when the Board voted against advancing the project.
So for what purpose did Crown Hydro ask to speak before the Board?
Arlene Fried
Co-founder of Park Watch
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