What do these Hollywood heavy weights have in common?

 

Rene Balcer, Emmy and Peabody Award winning writer and producer of landmark television series “Law and Order”; co-creator, writer, and producer of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.”

 

Hinton Battle, dancer, dramatic actor, singer, choreographer, writer, director, and producer as well as America’s only living three-time Tony Award winner.

 

Warren Beatty, Oscar-winning writer, producer, director, and actor, winner of the Academy’s 2000 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

 

Stefan Bechtel, non-fiction author.

 

Steven Bochco, Multiple Emmy, Peabody, and Humanitas Award-winning writer, producer, and creator of landmark television series, including “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law,” “Doogie Howser,” and “N.Y.P.D. Blue.”

 

Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children’s Television, winner of the Peabody Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

Vin Di Bona, Chairman of the prestigious Caucus for Television Producers, Writers, and Directors, winner Emmy and Peabody Awards, creator and producer of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

 

John Connolly, actor, President of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

 

Blake Edwards, award-winning director, writer, producer, one of only three recipients of the prestigious Preston Sturges Award given jointly by the DGA and WGA, awarded the French Legion of Honor, winner of the French Cesar.

 

Diane English, multiple Emmy-winning writer and producer, creator of “Murphy Brown.”

 

Jonathan Estrin , Executive V.P., American Film Institute, Writer/producer/director of film and television, winner of WGA awards, nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes.

 

Tom Fontana, Emmy, Peabody, and Humanitas Award-winning writer and producer of “Oz,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and “St. Elsewhere.”

 

Marshall Goldberg, award winning writer, (“Life Goes On,” “LA Law,” “The Paper Chase,” “Newhart,” attorney, Chairman of the Writer’s Guild Industry-Health Fund and Producer – Writers Guild Pension Plan.

 

Roger Gimbel , Emmy award-winning independent producer.

 

Craig Haffner, President & CEO Greystone Television , Emmy Award winning Producer.

 

Leonard Hill, prolific producer and leading member of the prestigious Caucus for Television Producers, Writers, and Directors.

 

Gregory Allen Howard, screenwriter, “Ali,” and “Remember the Titans,” winner of Christopher Award and NAACP Image Award. Winner, Howard University’s Paul Robeson Award.

 

Gerald Isenberg, Professor, USC School of Cinema – Television, award-winning producer of over one hundred feature and television films, former President of Hearst Entertainment, former Chairman, The Caucus for Television Producers, Writers, and Directors.

 

Martin Kaplan, Associate Dean, USC Annenberg School For Communication and Director, The Norman Lear Center (as well as a screenwriter).

 

Richard Masur, actor, director, former President, Screen Actors Guild.

 

Mary McCormack, star of “K Street” on HBO, critically acclaimed stage, screen, and television actor.

 

Dorothea G. Petrie, Emmy award winning producer.

 

Frank Pierson, Oscar-winning writer, director, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the “Oscars”).

 

Sarah Pillsbury, Oscar and Emmy winning producer.

 

Marian Rees, renowned independent producer of “Miss Rose White,” “Love is Never Silent,” “Decoration Day,” “A Son’s Promise,” and other films that have garnered eleven Emmy Awards and thirty-six Emmy Nominations, two Golden Globe Awards, six Christopher Awards, the Humanitas Prize, and a Peabody.

 

David W. Rintels, multiple Emmy and Peabody-winning writer-producer, “Darrow,” “Sakharov,” “Andersonville,” “World War II: When Lions Roared.”

 

Victoria Riskin, Past President of the Writers Guild of America, west, and award winning writer-producer.

 

Allen Sabinson, Dean of Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, former President of Production at Miramax Film and senior executive at A&E, TNT, ABC, ICM, NBC and Showtime.

 

James Sadwith, Emmy-award winning director for “Sinatra,” writer, producer.

 

Sissy Spacek, Oscar-winning actress.

 

Sander Vanocur, a forty-year veteran of print and broadcast journalism, including work for The New York Times and Washington Post, NBC and ABC News.

 

Paul Wagner, Oscar-winning writer-producer-director of documentary and dramatic independent films.

 

 

Their Organization has just announced support of our efforts to stop Time Warner Cable from closing down the Public Access Studios in Los Angeles!

 

The Center for Creative Voices in the Media  http://www.creativevoices.us/

           has already sent their letter to Attorney General Brown requesting he act on our request to keep the studios open!

 

In Your Corner

 

David Hernandez President-Los Angeles Public Access Coalition

 

Leslie Dutton-Full Disclosure Network

http://www.fulldisclosure.net/

 

The Caucus

http://www.caucus.org/index.html

 

Stanley Sheinbaum

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stanley_K._Sheinbaum

 

Ed Asner

 

Center for Creative Voices in the Media

 http://www.creativevoices.us/

 

(The list is growing daily)

 

 

 

December 24, 2008

 

Attorney General Jerry Brown

Attorney General’s Office, California Department of Justice

Attn: Public Inquiry Unit P.O. Box 944255

Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

 

Dear Attorney General Brown:

 

We urge you to take immediate action to prevent Time Warner Cable’s

December 31, 2008 closure of fourteen Public Access studios and channels in the

Los Angeles area. This abrupt and unjustified action will be extremely harmful to

independent media artists, and even more harmful to the public.

 

The Center for Creative Voices in Media is a nonpartisan nonprofit 501(c)(3)

organization founded to preserve in America’s media the original, independent, and

diverse creative voices that enrich our nation’s culture and safeguard its democracy.

We chose the word “preserve” because those voices have been under relentless

assault the past several years as a result of the unprecedented consolidation and

concentration of media into a handful of giant conglomerates.

 

Public Access channels are a critical means of avoiding the chokehold that

these media leviathans, including Time Warner and its corporate cousin Time

Warner Cable, have over cable and broadcast television. The public interest

requires that they be permitted to continue to operate so that independent voices

can continue to reach an audience over television. This is most especially true in

Los Angeles, the home to so much of the television and video industry. If Public

Access is eliminated in Los Angeles, then Big Media will try to eliminate it

everywhere. Free speech will suffer throughout the nation and the public will be the

poorer.

 

We ask you to act positively upon the urgent request for injunctive and other

relief that you received from the Caucus for Television Producers, Writers &

Directors in a letter dated December 10, 2008.

Time is of the essence. We look forward to your immediate positive

response.

 

Sincerely,

Jonathan Rintels

Executive Director

 

 

Cc: Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa

Ed Reyes, LA City Council

Wendy Greuel, LA City Council

Dennis Zine, LA City Council

Tom LaBonge, LA City Council

Jack Weiss, LA City Council

Tony Cardenas, LA City Council

Richard Alarcon, LA City Council

Jan Perry, LA City Council

Janice Hahn, LA City Council

Bernard Parks, LA City Council

Herb Wesson, LA City Council

Greig Smith, LA City Council

Bill Rosendahl, LA City Council

Eric Garcetti, LA City Council

Jose Huizar, LA City Council

Mark Ridley-Thomas, LA County Board of Supervisors

 

 

Call to the Attorney General

LOS ANGELES PUBLIC ACCESS

COALITION

(LAPAC)
David Hernandez, President
P O Box 9158
No. Hollywood

91609
818-448-3403

 

 

 

December 8, 2008

 

 

Honorable, Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Attorney General of California

California Department of Justice

PO Box 944255

Sacramento, CA 94244-2550                                      BY FEDERAL EXPRESS MAIL

 

 

Attention:Attorney General Brown      Urgent Action Requested

 

Re: Time Warner Public Access Studios and Channels, City of Los Angeles

 

Dear  Attorney General  Brown,

We are writing to you with the greatest sense of urgency.  As the States’ top law enforcement official only you can stop what most certainly will be travesty on December 31, 2008 if Time Warner Cable, who has notified the city of Los Angeles, is permitted to close down all fourteen public access studios and channels on that date.

The Los Angeles City Council has failed to take any action to replace the facilities leaving thousands of public access producers and millions of cable subscribers in the dark, withith  fourteen channels and studios where vital public programming has been produced and cablecast for over 25 years. The Los Angeles City Attorney as failed to take action to protect the public from losing these vital public assets.

The issue has sat in committee for over a year and at this late date the council has referred it to a second committee, just days before the closing is to take place, without the benefit of either a Financial Impact Report or Community Impact Report.

 Page 2

Under the 2007 enacted DIVC legislation, the City will be responsible for establishing the public access facility/capacity as of January 1, 2009, but no actions have been approved  and there has been no proper evaluation and assessments for the financial resources needed to implement and sustain such an operation.

The same can be said for the impact on the public welfare. Without a community impact report, our council members can not determine with any accuracy the full extent of the loss to the community.

We realize the process has started and there will be a resolution at some point but for now, we are faced with the clear and immediate fact that the studios will be closing in less than three weeks with no plan, process or procedure in place and the certaintinty that entire public access will be shut down, harming the residents of the City of Los Angeles.

The studios should not close until the public’s rights have been are secured and replacement of the lost facilities are in place.

Therefore we are respectfully requesting you take the following action on behalf of the residents of Los Angeles:

 FILE FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF under California Business & Professions Code 17200 section 3. The basis for this action is as follows:

California’s unfair competition statute, Business and Professions Code sections 17200-17208, like  its federal counterpart, section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act(15U.S.C  Section 45 et seq), serves as a general prohibition on unfair and deceptive business practices and also as an antitrust law.

 Section 17200 defines “unfair competition” to include any “unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice” as well as “unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading “.There are five potentially distinct theories of liability under section 17200.

1.     Unlawful business acts or practice;

2.     Unfair business acts or practice;

3.     Fraudulent business acts or practice;

4.     Unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising; and

5.     False advertising and related practices covered by B&P 17500-17577

 

The broad purpose of Business and Professions Code section 17200 is “to permit tribunals to enjoin on-going wrongful business conduct in whatever context such activity might occur.”(People v. McKale (1979) 25 Cal.3d 626 In particular the purpose of the “unlawful” practice provision it “to extend the meaning of unfair competition to anything that can properly be called a business practice.

 The U.S. Supreme Court in FTC v Sperry & Hutchinson, 405 U.S. 233, 244(1972), in which the Court held that FTC Act Section 5 could reach beyond “the letter and spirit” of existing trade regulation laws to other wrongful business practices. The Sperry & Hutchinson noted the relevant factors for determining unfairness to be: “(1) whether the practice offends public policy, (2) whether it is immoral, unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous; (3) whether it causes substantial injury to consumers.

 Page 3

In brief, the court must weigh the utility of the defendant’s conduct against the gravity of the harm to the alleged victim.

 Here, the action of closing fourteen public access studios and channels offends public policy , is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and causes substantial injury to consumers who will be prevented from viewing independent programs on the City public access channels. The gravity of the harm to consumers outweighs any benefit to Time-Warner.

 

We are  requesting that you file for a Temporary Restraining Order against Time Warner to continue the service until such time as the City has provided alternative and equal facilities.

 

On behalf of the Coalition, associated listed below, and all  Public Access Producers, Community Advocates and subscribers thank you for the consideration you will give to this vital and time sensitive matter.

 

 

 

 

David Hernandez, Chairman

Los Angeles Public Access Coalition (LAPAC)

PO Box 9158,

North Hollywood, CA 91609

818 448 3403

 

Associates of LAPAC         Missy Woodward                                                                                                Leslie Dutton, Producer Critter Crusades                                                                                                 Full Disclosure Network      Dr. Dan Wiseman                                                                                 Charlotte Laws, Producer You’re Neighborhood Council   Kevin McKenna, Producer                                                                 Dr. Susan Block, Producer Executive Director IDEAS   Charlie Mount                                                                                      Elaine  Brown CLASSIC ARTS SHOWCASE    Lady Cage-Barile, Producer                                                                              Keith Hardine   Michael Cohen, Producer                                                                  Shane Devins, Producer

 

               

 

LOS ANGELES PUBLIC ACCESS

COALITION

(LAPAC)
David Hernandez, President
P O Box 9158
No. Hollywood

91609
818-448-3403 

 

November 30, 2008

 

Rocky Delgadillo

Los Angeles City Attorney

200 North Main Street

Los Angeles, California 90012

 

 Attention: Mr. Delgadillo,

Re:            Public Access Studios

                 Request for Action

 

Dear Mr. Delgadillo,

As a long time community advocates who have witnessed first hand the value of Public Access, we look to you for help.

 

On December 3, 2008 the Los Angeles City Council will be hearing the public access issue once again and could take action which will allow a vital public asset to be compromised.

 As Time Warner Cable has announced it will be closing fourteen public access studios on December 31, 2008, the welfare of those who produce, participate and view public access television will be gravely impacted.

The issue has moved forward from committee without the benefit of either a Financial Impact Report or Community Impact Report. As the City will be responsible for establishing the public access facility/capacity, no action can be taken without the proper evaluation and assessments for the financial resources needed to implement and sustain such an operation.

The same can be said for the impact on the public welfare. Without a community impact report, our council members can not determine with any accuracy the full extent of the loss to the community.

 

Page 2

I realize the process is in motion and there will be a resolution at some point but for now, we are faced with the clear and immediate fact that the studios will be closing in less than one month with no process or procedure in place to insure the transition does not adversely impact the residents of Los Angeles. The studios should not close until our rights are secured.

 Therefore I am respectfully requesting you take the following action on behalf of the residents of Los Angeles:

 FILE FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF under California Business & Professions Code 17200 section 3. The basis for this action is as follows:

California’s unfair competition statute, Business and Professions Code sections 17200-17208, like  its federal counterpart, section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act(15U.S.C  Section 45 et seq), serves as a general prohibition on unfair and deceptive business practices and also as an antitrust law.

 Section 17200 defines “unfair competition” to include any “unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice” as well as “unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading “.There are five potentially distinct theories of liability under section 17200.

1.     Unlawful business acts or practice;

2.     Unfair business acts or practice;

3.     Fraudulent business acts or practice;

4.     Unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising; and

5.     False advertising and related practices covered by B&P 17500-17577

The broad purpose of Business and Professions Code section 17200 is “to permit tribunals to enjoin on-going wrongful business conduct in whatever context such activity might occur.”(People v. McKale (1979) 25 Cal.3d 626 In particular the purpose of the “unlawful” practice provision it “to extend the meaning of unfair competition to anything that can properly be called a business practice.

The U.S. Supreme Court in FTC v Sperry & Hutchinson, 405 U.S. 233, 244(1972), in which the Court held that FTC Act Section 5 could reach beyond “the letter and spirit” of existing trade regulation laws to other wrongful business practices. The Sperry & Hutchinson noted the relevant factors for determining unfairness to be: “(1) whether the practice offends public policy, (2) whether it is immoral, unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous; (3) whether it causes substantial injury to consumers. In brief, the court must weigh the utility of the defendant’s conduct against the gravity of the harm to the alleged victim.

Here, the action of closing fourteen public access studios and channels offends public policy , is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and causes substantial injury to consumers who will be prevented from viewing independent programs on the City public access channel. The gravity of the harm to consumers outweighs any benefit to Time-Warner.

 

Page 3

I am requesting that you file for a Temporary Restraining Order against Time Warner to continue the service until such time as the City has provided alternative and equal facilities.

I as well as Public Access Producers, Community Advocates and subscribers thank you for the consideration you will give to this vital and time sensitive matter.

David Hernandez, Chairman

Los Angeles Public Access Coalition (LAPAC)

PO Box 9158,

North Hollywood, CA 91609

818 448 3403

 

               

Associates of LAPAC   Missy Woodward                                                                                                Leslie Dutton, Critter Crusades                                                                                            Full Disclosure Network      Dr. Dan Wiseman                                                                                 Charlotte Laws You’re Neighborhood Council   Kevin McKenna, Producer                                                                 Dr. Susan Block Executive Director IDEAS   Charlie Mount                                                                                      Elaine  Brown CLASSIC ARTS SHOWCASE    Lady Cage-Barile                                                                                 Keith Hardine   Michael Cohen                                                                                     (Partial Listing)