By Dante DeAmicis

      In these times of tightening budgets, a fading print media, and an aging population that doesn't get out much anymore, relevance becomes the test that the arts must pass in order to reach the general public, if that is in fact their goal. Are we to accept that in the future fewer people will be reading anything they don't have to or making special trips to see live performances or displays, letting our common culture take the corresponding hit?

      Fortunately we don't have to stand by as society chooses to separate into either cliquish snobby elitists or solitary grunting barbarians. We can use public access channels, such as our very own TV8, to fill the gap.

      Television, which is normally part of the problem, can be used to keep large numbers of people connected to what local organizations or unknown neighbors are doing.

      Tapings of Lake County Repertory Theater or their affiliates could be rebroadcast on TV8 for residents who can't afford a ticket or don't have a ride. More important, we can expand the offerings to school performances and inspired but unprofessional theater pieces or movies. These are your neighbors. The greater variety of art that makes it into homes the more art becomes a part of lives and artists part of the community.

      In my case, I use cheap equipment to video an assortment of local musicians and poets at Clearlake open mics to put on TV8. Seeing live performances on TV often encourages people to make the extra effort to get out and maybe even participate in the fun. Watching cheesy melodramas or campy interview shows (I plead guilty to making both) may bring the arts closer to home in more ways than one.

      Reading may get a bump if book discussion groups are televised, revisiting the old notion that serious reading is a precursor to social activity as well as spreading culture through informed literacy. Public access could advance performance in the wider community as a way to gain legitimacy.

      Future county poet laureates will promote poetry more by emoting regularly on TV8 than being published in microcirculation journals.

      The arts were originally an everyday experience that people had regular contact with. Most of its expressions were not rare or special events that you could avoid entirely if you wanted to. Local arts were as much a common bond as the local economy. We have tried to replace the arts with recreational consumption and corporate media spectacles. This has failed.

      TV8 and community radio are our best shots to keep the arts real.

      The non boilerplate parts of the agreement creating this countywide authority (minus Lakeport) makes up all of two pages. So there are a lot of unanswered questions and potential landmines down the road.

      Representation on this JPA consists of one rep each from       Clearlake, the county, and Mediacom. These three will choose an additional two members from the public. The criteria for selecting the later are not specified in the agreement. I suggested that a cable subscriber should be on the board.

      A strange process for funding the authority was devised. The new JPA decides on a budget and then Clearlake and the County divide up paying for half of it.

      How is the other half paid for? Well, there was an eight word reference to “underwriting” (???), a stated intent by Supervisor Ed Robey to invoke a surcharge on subscribers cable bill, and money that has been paid by Yuba College to broadcast their classes, which wasn’t mentioned in the agreement. Robey indicated that he didn’t know which half of the PEG budget the college funds would go into.

      TV8 manager Jack Barker convinced everyone that the next piece of equipment we buy should be an emergency power source so we can keep the channel on the air after a power outage or surge and not loose the programming that schedules the residents’ videos for the week.

      This led into a recurring discussion about how we can turn over the channel to an emergency response person on short notice for warnings and announcements.

      I remind everyone that Channel 8 is not just for announcements and classes. It is also for local dramatic and cultural productions. Creative individuals and school clubs can develop their production and performance skills by making videos for public access TV without having to ask anyone, using consumer grade equipment.

      “Doing” is a far more effective learning tool than being entertained. The grass may look greener in distant big cities but you can actually use it in Lake County - seven days a week, 365 days a year.