CAR 25 a Love Story
September 15, 2012 Leave a comment
25 A story
As you all may know, I got my start with and still do work in/with CATV station CAR 25 in Racine WI
Looks to me that the Mayor of Racine wants to shut down our CATV station to all but his cronies
case in point
From the Journal Times
RACINE – Less than a week after a dispute between the mayor and an alderman about the city’s hiring process, aldermen will again consider the mayor’s choice for a consultant whose position was not publicly advertised.
Mayor John Dickert, with staff, has selected Sandy Petrykowski to provide part-time consulting services for the city’s cable access channel CAR 25. She is a Racine resident and former CNN correspondent.
This Monday the city’s Finance and Personnel Committee is set to discuss a $40,000 contract to hire Petrykowski for consulting services through the end of February 2011. The money comes from franchise fees paid by cable subscribers.
As a consultant for CAR 25 she would create a programming grid, shoot and edit programs, submit recommendations for new equipment, make progress reports to city committees, and develop a new Internet format for the channel, the contract says.
The meeting to discuss hiring Petrykowski is scheduled less than a week after Alderman Mike Shields, the president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wrote a letter on behalf of the NAACP opposing the city’s policy of not advertising new professional service contracts. He specifically opposed the mayor’s hiring process for the city’s new PR consultant former Alderman Mark Eickhorst.
Similarly to how Eickhorst was selected, Dickert recommended Petrykowski for the consulting position and did not open up the application process for others – a process which is not required by law, according to City Administrator Tom Friedel.
Dickert said it is “normal procedure” not to bid out professional service contracts.
Petrykowski and her husband Hossam Aboul-Magd filmed mayoral candidates during the 2009 election for an independent film. The film, which has not yet been produced, featured Dickert. But Petrykowski said Dickert did not pay for the filming and Dickert said Petrykowksi was not involved in his campaign.
Petrykowski, a Racine native, has extensive experience in broadcast news. She has worked at ABC World News and CNN and was nominated for two Emmys. She most recently worked as the bureau chief at National Geographic in Cairo, Egypt, but she moved back to Racine in 2008 to raise her family.
Now that she is living back in Racine, she said she believes there is a lot of opportunity to make CAR 25 a better channel.
“Have you watched it?” Petrykowski said. “It’s fine, but there is great potential to make it better.”
Chase Hendrix, chairman of the city’s Cable Television Commission, which oversees CAR 25, said he is not concerned about the hiring process. “I trust that the mayor has found a person who is very capable,” Hendrix said. But he expressed concern about using $40,000 for a single consultant. But he said the channel has very limited resources and explained that his primary concern is getting more equipment for CAR 25 and having part-time staff help with day-to-day functions. In an e-mail to aldermen in January he recommended that the city spend $15,000 to $20,000 on a consultant, rather than $40,000 and use the remaining money to hire a part-time assistant to help with day-to-day duties and buy “much-needed” equipment.
He also said that a few years ago the city hired a consultant for about $25,000 to produce videos, but that the videos quickly became outdated and were barely used. He recommended that each project should have its own budget and timeline. Petrykowski’s contract says that she would be paid $3,333.33 per month for 12 months and that she would work a maximum of 1,040 hours in total.
The meeting on Petrykowski’s contract is scheduled for 5 p.m. at City Hall, 730 Washington Ave., Room 301.
Got this email back, from the City Administrator City in Bold
hope you can help. As you may not know CAR 25 has no working cameras and staff must use personnel equipment to tape productions.
A new camera was ordered some time ago. We are waiting for delivery.
The DVD duplicator is no longer working so members of the public can not buy copies of productions they may need.
That request was put in yesterday, so a new one has been ordered.
Was not that long ago that City Council gave CAR 25 monies to buy/maintained equipment. I am shocked that this equipment was not bought and equipment not working is not fixed or replicated.
Equipment was purchased during the 2010 budget, I am disappointed to hear that we need to replace it already. I will look into that.
Why can’t MIS who oversees CAR 25 do that simple task?
I find that MIS responds quite well when they have good information.
Please sir look into this and perhaps light a fire under MIS
No fire was needed.
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An update
The New Newspaper The Racine Communicator ran a Story on CAR 25 and from I understand the Downtown crowd does not like it.
From what I was told this morning 9/15/12 a person giving out copies and an advertiser has been harassed in the Downtown.
Is it now a “crime” to show light on what is happening with CAR 25?
What I do not understand (Still) is that CAR 25 is the smallest department of the City of Racine at about 75K a year. What is the issue? What is going on that we do not know?
If this is as I think nothing more then Mayor John Dickert’s plan to create the John “the God of Racine” Dickert’s idea on creating a propaganda outlet for him to use (and reward a few cronies) a You Tube/Twitter account could be done and if his cronies have the background they claim that effort bring about a far better ROI
Might be interesting to put out info on the make up of the Car 25 Commission’s membership and what if any background they have other then perhaps being lap dogs for the Mayor
