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3 votes on public access TV aren't enough
By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA -- Hillsborough commissioners tried and failed Wednesday to bring to a close a yearlong dispute with the operators of public access television. The commission voted three times on varying proposals to settle a federal First Amendment lawsuit brought last year by Speak Up Tampa Bay, operators of the publicly funded station. But each attempt died when commissioners were unable to reach consensus. Commissioners will try again at 9:30 a.m. today when they reconvene Wednesday's meeting to take up the issue. The votes came after commissioners emerged from a closed session in which they discussed the results of about four months of court-ordered mediation. U.S. District Judge James S. Moody tentatively sided with the station last November in its lawsuit claiming that commissioners cut funding for the station as an attempt to censor its content. After finding that the station had a good chance of prevailing, Moody ordered commissioners to continue funding the station. In August, commissioners had voted to cut the $355,000 the county pays nonprofit Speak Up Tampa Bay to run the station. The vote was preceded by months of open debate and news conferences in which Commissioner Ronda Storms crusaded against graphic nudity on some shows. Her campaign started early last year when one show producer, Charles Perkins, aired closeup camera footage of female genitalia on his program The Happy Show. On advice of county attorneys, commissioners spoke little during or after Wednesday's votes. But they appeared divided in three camps. Commissioner Kathy Castor proposed a handful of settlement provisions that would have restored station funding through next year, pushed mature programming until after 11 p.m. and gotten the station to guarantee that more of its shows during the day perform a public service. She also proposed a $95,000 payment to the station. Commissioners Jim Norman and Tom Scott supported her. Pat Frank proposed extending the contract through March 2005. That would keep it secure past a new election cycle. Initially, she proposed no other conditions on the station other than the one keeping mature shows after 11 p.m. and suggested a payment of $120,000. Only Platt supported her. So Frank tried again, adopting each of Castor's provisions, but extending the contract an additional year. She got Castor on board with Platt, but failed to pick up the necessary fourth vote. Storms voted against each settlement proposal.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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