Comments on: Rethinking the Community Media Center of the North Bay

By: Dan Villalva

Dan Villalva — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:32:40 +0000

Allow me to point out a few facts: The source of the funding from the City to the Community Media Center has always been the franchise fees from the video provider – THESE ARE NOT TAXES. Franchise fees are the RENT that these multi-billion dollar corporations pay to the City for tearing up our streets and stringing their cables on the public’s right of way. I’m sure they’d prefer to have free rent but It seems only right that they pay something for the ability to take millions in profit each year from the Santa Rosa community.

CMC does not apologize for using the capital funding provided by the last contract to prudently buy digital cameras and to update its editing suites with new IMac computers to keep up with the changes in technology and internet distribution. The fact that any resident can come in, learn to use this equipment and put out their message to the channels and to the internet is a basic foundation of DEMOCRACY.

And while it’s easy to draw the reader’s attention by making disparaging assumptions about the people that actually use the media center, let me point out that the media center crews also covered the marathon 10 hour school board meeting the other night and that CMC conducts classes for youngsters that actually show them how to make something a little more creative than a shaky youtube video of their jumping cat.

You can’t do all that for a couple of thousand dollars.

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By: Otto Greener

Otto Greener — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:22:47 +0000

The citizens of Santa Rosa need the Media Center like they need an Osborne-1 computer from the early 1980′s. In fact, both are about as relevant in 2012. The City needs to move on to the IPad or Windows 8.

The city can buy the kids a few new IPads and they will produce much better shows for YouTube that the current bunch of hippies doing knife juggling and beer making.

All of this just shows how backward Santa Rosa really is in technology. Can you say “stone age.”

All of this could be done for a couple of thousand dollars, not $300,000 dollars.

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By: Mark Millan

Mark Millan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:52:57 +0000

This is an important community resource that should be sustained and supported. We can not expect that outside media would, or is, going to cover our local issues and concerns with the same vigor and care.

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By: Bob Kennedy (SoCooLBob)

Bob Kennedy (SoCooLBob) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 07:53:31 +0000

The Community Media Center was significant to me in the early days of learning how to produce and providing access to a space to display those productions.

I would hope they’d be able to emphasize online distribution … expand their audience and their service area.

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By: Living in Paradise

Living in Paradise — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 03:11:28 +0000

This is a total waste of tax money in Santa Rosa. If you want to learn about beer making, monkey puppets or street theater, buy a cheap video camera or use your Iphone and make a YouTube video. There are millions of videos out there with many more interesting things than anything that gang at the Media Center could ever dream up.

The taxpayers in Santa Rosa with satilite can’t even watch the stuff this group does now. It is old school technology and old school thinking.

This media center sounds like another public jobs program for some unemployed video wantabe makers. They can spent their time more creatively looking for a real job.

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By: Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:58:18 +0000

Let me see, diverse, accessible alternative media or $20 million for a bike bridge…

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