Town Council candidate Francis Sheehan criticizes Town policy for airing incumbents' videotapes on public access TV in an e-mail exchange with Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
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Francis Sheehan wrote:
October 17, 2001 Paul, Last night the infomercials you, Diana Juettner, Timmy Weinberg and Alfreda Williams individually taped ran from 6:30 - 7:00 pm; at 7:00 pm channel 71 went back to the bulletin board. Ironically, in your infomercial you stress how you not only talk about campaign reform, you do it by providing each candidate with equal cable access. Under what authority, resolution, or written "fair" policy did the four incumbents' tapes run yesterday at 6:30 pm? Thank you. --Francis |
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Paul Feiner wrote:
October 17, 2001 We had invited all candidates to
appear on cable TV. In fact, I even e mailed the head of the Greenburgh
Republican party inviting them to tape a segment. It's not my problem if
they refuse to air a program or tape one. I encourage all candidates
to participate --including you since your a candidate on the working
families party line. |
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Francis Sheehan wrote:
October 17, 2001 Paul, Your response doesn't answer the question I asked. You say you want to be fair regarding cable access, yet seem to change or ignore your own rules to suit your needs. Showing candidate infomercials at 6:30pm was never agreed to by the candidates and is not part of the adopted resolution. Also, for the primary, I was told that no candidate tape could be shown until all candidates who wanted to tape a show taped a show. That does not appear to apply here either now that the incumbents have taped their shows. You say the other candidates "refuse" to air a show. I do not know that to be the case. The question I asked you in my prior e-mail is simple: "Under what authority, resolution, or written 'fair' policy did the four incumbents' tapes run yesterday at 6:30 pm?" In other words, what cable access rules for candidates are you following and when were they adopted? --Francis |
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Paul Feiner wrote:
October 17, 2001 Cable news (not the town) sent every candidate a letter inviting them to tape a 2 minute segment. They are running on the local access channels and the town had nothing to do with that. It's possible that the segment you saw was the segment they coordinated. I haven't seen the segments but know that the programs were scheduled to air daily in the early evening. You
may wish to contact Cablevision directly. Emily Spaulding is in charge of
Cablevision and this program-- candidates from all over Westchester were
given similar treatment. |
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Francis Sheehan wrote:
October 17, 2001 Paul, Your response didn't answer the question I asked, which related to what policy is currently in affect regarding "fair" access to our town's public access channels. Regarding your response, your aired segment was 15 minutes and had titles identical to those George Malone uses. It was not the Cablevision 3 minute segment, as you should have deduced from my statement that the four incumbent segments ran from 6:30pm - 7:00pm (30 minutes) on Tuesday. Further, I said it aired on channel 71, not channel 74, another clue that it was not the Cablevision produced segment. Also, for your information, the tapes played again this evening (Wednesday) on channel 71. Wednesday airing is also not part of the candidates' agreement. You don't seem to know what is on our public access channel, of which you have total control. Therefore, another question is raised: Is George playing the tapes on his own initiative without any direction from his incumbent-employers? I doubt it, but I want to know for sure from you. In summary, I
appreciate a timely response to the following questions asked: In fairness to George, if you know his e-mail address, please forward this post to him. Thank you in advance for a timely response. |