The PAC-14 Fiasco – Part IV…

… Why Do They Refuse to Answer Any Questions?

I’m going to start with the short answer –

Because they don’t want you to find out what they are doing!

But don’t stop there. You’ve been patient since Monday. Today is when we finally get to the real meat and potatoes of what Mike Pretl, Betty Crockett, Phil Tilghman, Jerry Waldron, John Pick and their merry band of pranksters have planned for OUR public access channel – PAC-14.

Today’s post is long. So pour a cup and sit back.

Today we’re going to look into:

• What’s the Agenda?

• Who Will Control the new, but not improved, PAC-14?

• How Will They Control It?

• How Will This Harm Me?

What’s the Agenda?

I have to admit that I’m not totally sure. There is no question that Salisbury University (or Betty Crockett, individually) has an agenda. Whether it’s to control programming or to have control over another pot of money, or simply just the human desire for CONTROL – I’m not sure.

Crockett, along with her cohort Jerry Waldron, has gone out of her way to shut out the existing board. Budgets aren’t being properly approved. Public funds are being improperly used. People don’t normally do these types of things without a reason.

The Wicomico County government is being kept in the semi-dark. The only public official who seems to have a finger in this pie is Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman – through her minion John Pick.

I don’t know Phil Tilghman, so it’s hard for me to speculate on exactly what his agenda is. However, the consensus seems to be that Tilghman has a distinct political purpose in the takeover of PAC-14. If I knew that Tilghman was a political ally of Mike Pretl, I would fall in this camp as well.

This leads us to Mike Pretl. There is no question that Pretl has an agenda and it is not a mainstream one either. As we noted Tuesday, Pretl is a champion of myriad left-wing causes. Whether in his role as President of the Wicomico Environmental Trust (WET), or his membership on the board of the Maryland Healthcare for All Coalition we can all count on Mike to take a stand for the socialist cause.

Pretl’s extreme left worldview is possibly the link that we have with Salisbury University’s agenda in this matter. Simply take a look at the board of directors for WET – 25% of the current board have SU email addresses and we don’t know how many more have some relationship with the institution.

Leftists (I won’t call them liberals for fear of insulting my liberal friends) have certain things in common. Among them are the desire to control institutions and DICTATE to US (the poor, stupid, common individual). Another is to make us poor, stupid, common folk like us pay for their (the leftists’) folly. They do these things because it’s for our own good – so they claim.

This is Pretl’s agenda – and possibly SU’s. I won’t question their motivations. I question their ACTIONS and their METHODS.

PAC-14 has a board. PAC-14 has by-laws. If they want to change things, let them follow the same rules that you and I have to follow.

Who Will Control the New, But Not Improved, PAC-14?

The short answer is – Mike Pretl and his pals at SU. But wait… there’s more.

This is where I’m really disappointed in Mike Pretl. Ever since this began, I’ve been warning folks that I’ve discussed this with that Pretl would not make the same type of fatal errors that he made when attempting his takeover of the Wicomico Neighborhood Congress board. (Yes, I know he’s president-elect but the WNC has a solid, “bi-partisan” board). I didn’t think that he would do something like his now infamous “distributive justice” shtick again.

I was wrong. I watched Mike Pretl announce on TV, “we will choose the board (of PAC-14)”.

Of course that’s just the beginning. After Pretl and his pals pack as many allies as possible on the initial board, they are just beginning. There next step will be to hold an ELECTION IN CUBA.

After a two to three year period, it will be time to choose a new board. If you saw Pretl on PAC-14, and listened carefully, you witnessed the unveiling of a plan for FULL AND TOTAL CONTROL OF PAC-14.

How Will They Control PAC-14?

According to Pretl, the “members” will elect all future boards. Who are the “members”? No, don’t confuse these with the “partners”. According to Pretl, the “members” will be people from the community who, after paying a “nominal” fee, will have voting rights in the new, unimproved PAC-14.

Sounds pretty innocuous, doesn’t it? Raise a little money for the station. Get some community involvement. Sounds great! And just in case too many of my type decide to squeeze the trigger on a check for that “nominal fee”, Pretl and his politburo have a backstop – the NOMINATING COMMITTEE.

Let’s go back to today’s question – Why Do They Refuse to Answer Any Questions? As with all things, the devil is in the details. The merry pranksters want the guaranteed funding from a cable rate increase, plus funds from the city and county, secure before they reveal their new set of proposed by-laws and articles of incorporation. This is precisely why Mike Goodson kept dodging questions at the July 15 Salisbury council meeting. While anything can get approved in Salisbury with Barrie Tilghman’s blessing, I don’t think that the Wicomico County Council, or the County Executive, will want to hand over millions of dollars over the next decade to a group that is not accountable to the taxpayers.

Remember the “partners”? Under the Pretl plan, they won’t have much influence. Pretl announced that the proposed board structure would consist of 15 members. Only four of these members would be appointed by the “partners”. AND there will be a new “partner” – Wor-Wic Community College.

Translation – elected officials will only appoint TWO members of a 15 member board, but YOU WILL BE PAYING THE FULL FREIGHT!

Back to the NOMINATING COMMITTEE. Expect to find in the new by-laws a provision that either:

1. Only persons put forth by the nominating committee can receive votes for the PAC-14 board. or ….
2. There will be a huge hurdle to overcome in order to nominate persons from the floor.

In other words, expect the new PAC-14 board to be elected in the same fashion that members of the Cuban National Assembly are elected. You can vote for who they say, or not vote at all. At least with PAC-14 I don’t think you’ll be shot if you don’t vote.

Pretl and his pranksters will argue that this is how things are normally done at non-profits. It is true that this is done quite often. However, PAC-14 is not your normal non-profit. Most, if not all, of its funding comes from the taxpayer – either through Salisbury, Wicomico County, or SU.

Once this action is taken, don’t expect any sunshine either. Even though the Pranksters envision a publicly funded entity, it will not be subject to the Maryland Open Meetings Law. If you do decide to keep up with their goings on, they will be under no obligation to tell you when meetings are (other than the annual membership meeting) nor will they have to offer you the opportunity to comment. They certainly won’t have to answer any questions. Of course Louise Smith and her cohorts on the Salisbury Council don’t answer questions either.

How Will This Harm Me?

In one sense it won’t. I know, this doesn’t help my case; but I’ve got to be honest. If you don’t care how your tax dollars or part of your Comcast bill are being spent, don’t worry.

However, if you do care, there are plenty of problems and a great deal of potential harm that can be done to you and your community.

It’s unlikely that there would be any near-term efforts to place stringent controls on programming. I’ve heard some folks complain that Pretl would start producing shows for WET and some of his other lefty causes. So what? Just because I disagree with his politics doesn’t mean that he doesn’t enjoy the same freedoms as you or I.

A potential programming issue would arise IF they were able to source enough programming to fill most, or all, of the available slots. Then we could have a problem.

Let’s assume that I started to do a weekly show. A Pretl-controlled board would be foolish not to air it, but they could make sure that it only aired at 2AM on a Sunday morning.

Of greater concern is the prospect of a flow of programming designed to impact local political decisions, or even elections. Again, the First Amendment applies to the left as well it does to you or I, but a PAC-14 board dominated by people like Mike Pretl could be a grave concern. This is also where Phil Tilghman could come into play.

I already know the counter-argument to this: The board won’t be making decisions on what airs, etc. What little I know of Mike Goodson leads me to believe that he’ll do whatever he’s told by these folks. And Goodson will be making those decisions.

Another counter-argument is that no one watches. WRONG! I was shocked to find out how many people watched a Salisbury City Council meeting when Salisbury News and Delmarva Dealings did a joint live blog of a meeting last June. There was little advance announcement of the event and there were 815 people on the live blog, All of them were watching the meeting on PAC-14 or on PAC-14’s videostream. We can only guess how many others were watching.

Just think of the damage that could occur if voters are receiving only one point of view.

There are other potential problems, but there is one glaring concern:

DO WE WANT OUR LOCAL PUBLIC ACCESS CHANNEL, FUNDED WITH OUR MONEY, CONTROLLED BY A GROUP THAT IS NOT ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PUBLIC? Whether we agree with their political views or not?

Tune in tomorrow for the last installment -

Should Ratepayers and Taxpayers Fund an Organization With No Accountability?

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