City to consider creating public access cable TV channel

By Doug Spoon, Editor

The Menifee City Council on Wednesday authorized City staff to continue exploring options to create a public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channel to be aired by local cable TV providers.

Staff’s proposal was to explore the possibility of a partnership with Mt. San Jacinto College to acquire audio/visual equipment and develop content for such a channel. A possible partnership with Riverside County will also be explored.

Public access channels have been offered by many cities on local cable networks for years. Because Menifee still is a relatively new city, this concept is just now being explored. Cities receive funding from the state to assist with his purpose. According to the current City budget, $268,000 is expected to be accumulated in the PEG budget this year, and it cannot be used for another purpose.

According to the staff presentation to council on the matter Wednesday night, “As part of its Strategic Vision Plan, the City Council set a goal to build an accessible, interconnected community and a responsive and transparent government. Doing so will support the City of Menifee’s (City’s) vision to foster efficient multi-modal communication that would be utilized to inform and educate the community, develop a clear sense of place, and establish a unique identity.”

This goal could be achieved simply with a government access channel that airs live City Council meetings and other City meetings, or the project could be a full PEG channel offering meeting coverage and original content. The standard for such a channel would be to broadcast content an average of 56 hours per week – or 8 hours per day.

If implemented, the project would request one public access channel from each cable TV provider that serves Menifee. This content would not be broadcast on streaming services such as Netflix, said Ron Puccinelli, the City’s chief information officer.

Puccinelli told council members that approximately 25 percent of  households use cable TV. Council members discussed whether that percentage, along with the fact cable TV use in general is on the decline, would be worth pursuing the project.

“Public access channels was a cool thing about 20 years ago,” said council member Bob Karwin. "Are there any modern start-ups for a comparison? Have any other cities started this in the last two or three years?”

Puccinelli said there were none that he was aware of. Dominique Samario, the City’s public information officer, pointed out that most are older cities and have had government access channels for years – even though some are more active than others.

“There’s a range of how people are doing it,” Samario said. “Because of online expansion, cities are getting better at it. But some just put up a Power Point.”

Karin Marriott, public information officer for MSJC, told council members the college’s video program was “in the revamp stage” and that the school is “looking at curriculum to train students to do this kind of work one day.” MSJC does have a video studio and equipment. In addition, the plan calls for the City to provide upgrades to the audio/visual equipment in council chambers and use it as a studio.

Karwin also asked whether there were plans to bring in staff members with experience in TV production. City manager Armando Villa said that staff members with such training would be used, including a new audio/visual tech with TV experience who was recently hired.

Samario has prior experience in working with city government access channels and worked with Puccinelli to develop the staff presentation. But as Villa announced at the end of the council meeting, Samario will be leaving the City at the end of next week. Samario told Menifee 24/7 she has been hired as PIO for the City of Murrieta. That leaves a hole in the City’s PEG plans.

The creation of such a channel could take up to a year, however, and Villa said the City will be actively recruiting to fill the position with someone of similar experience.

A motion to have City staff continue exploring partnership options for the project was approved unanimously, even though council members asked for a better projection of how many residents would actually use such a service.

“I think we need to conduct a survey to find out who has cable, who uses the internet, streaming, etc.,” said Mayor Pro Tem Lesa Sobek.

“I agree,” said council member Dean Deines. “How many people are we reaching now?”

Karwin pointed out that as the meeting was being conducted, he checked the City’s YouTube page to gauge viewership of the live broadcast. There were only 16 people watching at the time. He said the City’s YouTube channel has about 560 subscribers.