Waynesville Councilman Ed Conley wants better answers from the Waynesville R-VI School Board on how it’s handling the Waynesville cable system’s public access channel, Channel 12.
“The school believes it is theirs and they can do what they want with it, but it is not,” Conley said at Thursday afternoon’s meeting of the Waynesville Communication Committee. “I think the school board thought we were trying to rip it away from them, and that is not what we want at all.”
Conley said the original cable contracts clearly specify that the city, not the school board, is responsible for the cable channel. However, he said it appears that many years ago the day-to-day responsibility for Channel 12 was delegated to the Waynesville schools because the schools had the ability to assign broadcast journalism students to production roles.
“It’s a good resource for the community and it’s a good mix, and it works out well for the cable company because some people get basic cable because they want Channel 12 and it is not something they can get on satellite,” said John Morrissey, the city’s webmaster.
Conley said he didn’t want any major changes from the Waynesville school district other than a commitment to carry all regularly scheduled Waynesville city council meetings and not pre-empt them for football games or other school coverage.
Councilwoman Twyla Cordry, who chairs the communications committee, said she’ll try to contact school officials to see if they’ll explain their position at the September committee meeting.
“We’ll try to get them to come to the next meeting,” Cordry said. “We’d really like for them to come and meet with us.”
Conley had a simple response: “Good luck.”