Three, two, one … you’re live San Juan Bautista.
Community Media Access Partnership, the public-access television
station located on the Gavilan College campus, will begin airing
the San Juan Bautista City Council meetings for the first time
today. The program airs at 1 p.m. on Channel 17.
Three, two, one … you’re live San Juan Bautista.
Community Media Access Partnership, the public-access television station located on the Gavilan College campus, will begin airing the San Juan Bautista City Council meetings for the first time today. The program airs at 1 p.m. on Channel 17.
Program manager Jan Janes said because the most recent meeting lasted four hours it will only be aired once per day.
“The Hollister City Council meeting and the Board of Supervisors meeting usually doesn’t last more than an hour so, they get additional air play,” she said. “This will not run more than once a day.”
As part of CMAP’s mission, it offers videotaping services to local governments, education and non-profit groups. The San Juan Council voted last month to begin the taping.
“The video taping has been in the works for sometime,” said CMAP Executive Director Suzanne St. John.
The plan is to train Anzar High School students who will film the meetings at no cost to the city except for the price of the video tapes.
“Council members Chuck Geiger and Arturo Medina came in wanting to get it kick-started,” St. John said. “Chuck said, ‘How can we make it happen?’ and he was willing to pay for it out of his own pocket.”
CMAP, however, waived the $50 fee for the first taping, but if students cannot be used to film future meetings, CMAP will not be able to continue to waive the fee.
“CMAP is willing to work with the city, but because of the length of these meetings, there are curfew issues,” St. John said. “There is no way we can have a student stay there that long.”
City Clerk Shawna Serna said SJB is working with Anzar educators to help train students so the city would not have to pay a staff person to do the taping.
Serna said the Council is interested in the project and also voted to tape planning commission meetings.
“How it will play out is the students will do the filming, but eventually the meetings will be a live broadcast,” Serna said. “What a perfect match this is, and it gets the kids involved with government.”
