NCCCMC

Dear Friends:

A statewide effort is underway in the N.C. General Assembly to secure funding for URTV and other public access TV operations around North Carolina.

Our champions, Senators Walter Dalton (D-Rutherford) and Martin Nesbitt (D-Buncombe) have placed $1 million in the Senate version of the new state budget. We now need to get the House budget conferees to agree to this appropriation for PEG channels (public, education and government TV channels).

In addition, Sens. Dalton and Nesbitt will be running Senate Bill 1068, after the state budget is finalized. SB-1068 would set aside $5 million a year for PEG channels and Community Media Centers (CMCs). The $1 million the senators put in the state budget is "insurance" in case SB-1068 cannot be brought up for a vote later this summer.

We need your help NOW in getting the $1 million in the final state budget.

Only one House member from WNC is a co-chair of the budget conference committee. He is Rep. Phil Haire (D-Jackson), which is home to WCU and Southwestern Community College.

Please contact Rep. Haire by email at: hairela@ncleg.net . . . or call his office at 919-715-3005.

Please ask him to support the $1 million for PEG channel funding proposed by Senators Walter Dalton and Martin Nesbitt. Let him know that this funding is critical for digital media job training for our young people, and small-business incubation for our media professionals.

If you have friends and colleagues in Sylva or Jackson County, please forward this post to them and ask them to also contact Rep. Haire. We are especially wanting our local economic development officials -- like the chambers of commerce -- to get behind this. (The Asheville-Area C of C has already signed on!)

As for SB-1068, we will be focusing on that effort AFTER the new state budget is finalized. For more information about SB-1068, check out: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2007&BillID=S1068

Thanks for your help on this funding effort, which is so critical for the survival of URTV -- and for PEG access statewide!

Wally Bowen
N.C. Coalition of Community Media Centers http://www.ncccmc.org