Group wants to save community’s Channel 14

A Spokane nonprofit has offered to run a cable channel that might otherwise disappear at the end of the year.

But it will need support from local governments and Comcast ratepayers to make it happen.

This week, Community-Minded Enterprises pitched its vision for the future of Channel 14 to the Spokane and Spokane Valley city councils.

“There’s all kinds of informational gaps in the community,” Dan Baumgarten, the organization’s executive director, told the Spokane Valley Council on Tuesday night.

A new format for the public channel could fill those gaps by focusing on groups and programming that try to make the community better, he said.

Moving the station to a new building, buying new digital equipment and hiring people to help produce the programming would cost about $435,000, and the group plans to ask the cities and the county for money from their franchise agreements with Comcast cable to help fund it.

Last year, Spokane successfully negotiated for $4 million in capital spending on several public broadcast facilities over the course of its 12-year franchise with Comcast accompanied by a small increase in monthly cable fees. But recent changes in federal law have meant that cable companies are no longer required to provide facilities for public access.

“There’s a real risk of it just going dark at the end of the year,” said Spokane Valley administrative analyst Morgan Koudelka.

While the educational and government channels are operated elsewhere, Comcast housed the community access channel.

If the city of Spokane signs a contract for Community-Minded Enterprises to run the channel and enough money becomes available, it would continue the current programming on Channel 14 at a new facility until spring.

After that, programming would follow editorial policies established by a board.

“We didn’t really want to be associated with something that you might have to wince over,” Baumgarten said.

In other cities, public-access cable channels have caused controversy over programming protected by the First Amendment that some people found offensive or of little benefit to the community.

According to Spokane city attorneys, though, Channel 14 wouldn’t be a true public-access channel and would have the legal authority to restrict its content.

Spokane Valley Councilman Rich Munson asked who would be on the board and how they would decide what content to restrict.

Baumgarten said that issue would be avoided because proposed programs would be judged by their community value.

All of the content would be screened to meet a thematic standard set by the board. As Baumgarten’s organization envisions it, much of that would focus on non-profits offering services and information residents otherwise might not have known about.

The source of funds to operate the community channel once it is established is biggest unknown. Community-Minded Enterprises has secured grants for numerous groups in Spokane, and Baumgarten said it likely can do so for the station.

A proposal scheduled to come before the Spokane council next week would provide $200,000 to the nonprofit next year and potentially $50,000 in the two following years.

Spokane Valley agreed to consider the group’s proposal, with council members asking for firmer numbers on what it would cost.