Past reports can be found on the archives page!

The reports on White Plains CitizeNetReporter are intended solely for our reading audience. Any reproduction or retransmission of these reports without express written consent of CitizeNetReporter Network, Inc. is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Common Council Meeting goes "dark."

Common Council meeting is not televised live
"due to break in communications" between studio and City Hall.

Discovered 2 hours before the meeting.

CityLine: November 6, 2000, City Cable Studio

The Common Council meeting of November 6, 2000 was not televised live for the first time within memory of this reporter. The cause of the blackout of many White Plains political buffs' favorite late night programming was a breakdown in communications between Common Council Chambers at City Hall and the City Cable Access Channel 72 Studios on Lexington Avenue.

According to an engineer on duty at the cable access studio Monday evening, this "break in communications," as he described it prevented the usual "live feed" from being cablecast as scheduled Monday evening. He said he did not know whether it was a break in the cable line or what had caused the break. The spokesman said Fred Strauss, the director of the city government access channel became aware of the problem at 6 PM when attempting to set up prior to the regular Monday night cablecast.

Council-watchers were greeted with a "bumper slide" on the cable channel 72 informing them that "due to technical difficulties" the meeting would not be shown live, but that a tape of the meeting would be telecast Tuesday night at 8 PM.

The blacking out of the meeting was particularly ironic, considering the current controversy over who controls content of the City Government Access Channel (Channel 72). The Common Council has drafted a Programming Policy recommending that the Common Council control all content on Channel 72, and was looking for the Mayor to put the policy on the November 6 agenda. Currently the Mayor's Office has this programming power. WPCNR had asked Friday afternoon if this was coming up on the Monday night agenda and had not received confirmation that the issue was or was not on the Monday night agenda.

Another departure in normal procedure this month was that the agenda for the Common Council meeting was not up on the city's website. The latest agenda up on the website as of late this afternoon was for theOctober25 Council work session.

Copyright © 1999/2000
White Plains CitizeNetReporter