Last night, the Buncombe County Commissioners took public comment on the prospects of URTV (a.k.a. the WNC Community Media Center) shutting down at the end of the month. They received a presentation from telecommunications consultant John C. Howell on how public access TV has been funded in the state and particularly in Buncombe County. His presentation of general statutes appeared to be accurate, as did his mathematical formulae, even if some of the numbers did not add up in trivial ways.
Members of the public, on the other hand, interpreted numbers differently. They assumed all revenues collected from the franchise fee had to go to funding public access TV. Howell and state statutes concur, franchise fees pay for much more, and only 5.79% was to go toward the support of Buncombe’s certified public access channels. Howell could find no evidence to substantiate claims that $30 million in franchise fees was owed to the station.
The station has had financial problems for a long time, but three board members raising flags were unseated. One former board member, Davyne Dial, hired at her own expense an attorney and a CPA to audit available records. Discrepancies were shown, for example, in the records of available funds and the balances and anticipated expenditures reported to Asheville City Council in a plea for funding. In addition, three key management persons were granted pay raises, bonuses, health care, and AmEx accounts when the business was reportedly floundering. A lot of AmEx expenses labeled “staff” and paid to numerous local eateries and groceries smelled of mismanagement in a publicly-funded company on the verge of going under. The private auditor, Foster Shriner, CPA, also recorded inconsistencies in statements about URTV’s records from the auditor hired by the county
Management was faulted for not getting involved in efforts to increase funding except for asking the city and county for more tax dollars. For the next year, URTV proposed paying $33,000 of its $297,450 budget, and leaving the difference to the taxpayers. Getting commercial sponsors was considered capitalistic and corruptive of free speech.
Comments from persons wanting more county funding betrayed an entitlement mentality. One program host said she was a businesswoman. She invested in clothing and DVD’s. She found a studio with utilities and hardware supported by taxpayers, and now she was giving back to the community. Members of the audience scoffed, chortled, and repeated, “Taxpayers!” when former board member Richard Bernier said there was a need for accountability.
