Public Access

"It's like a dream come true to rise through the ranks," the township's new police chief remarked after township Commissioner Stephen Campetti pinned on the badge of office. After 24 years of wearing the uniform and various stripes of a Haverford police officer, Lt. Gary Hoover, 47, was appointed chief of the 63-member department Monday night by a unanimous vote of the Board of Commissioners. "But it doesn't come alone," Hoover told the board and a roomful of smiling friends and well-wishers.

As Comcast Corp. seeks a hefty tax break to build its new Center City headquarters, Philadelphia officials should secure the cable giant's help with a long-delayed project - launching a public-access cable television station. Community groups pushing to open the powerful medium to amateur broadcasters, filmmakers, and civic groups made that compelling case yesterday before City Council. While Comcast and the other city cable-franchise holder, Urban Cableworks, together pay $500,000 yearly in cable franchise fees toward public-access TV, the city can and does spend it on other expenses.

After objections from neighbors of the Laurels in Chester County, the Brandywine Conservancy has postponed a plan to give thousands of its members access to the 800-acre nature preserve in East Fallowfield and West Marlborough Townships. The Laurels preserve, in the horse country of Chester County, has remained closed to virtually all but those who live around it since the Conservancy acquired the property in 1985. Conservancy officials had proposed broadening access beginning March 1. However, Conservancy spokeswoman Lucinda Laird said yesterday, the nonprofit agency's trustees had decided Monday to postpone action on the proposal.

As City Council members delve further into Verizon's welcome proposal to expand its pay-TV service to Philadelphia, they can improve the deal for viewers as well as the city's civic life by insisting that Verizon provide more support for citizen-run channels. With a hearing on the 15-year cable franchise negotiated by Mayor Nutter set to resume today, it's likely Council will continue to press Verizon for assurances the company will deliver on its pledge to provide citywide service.

As the new kid on the block in the cable-TV business in Philadelphia, Verizon Communications Inc. should match the support given by Comcast Corp. to the city's citizen-run television broadcasts. City Council members shouldn't sign off on a 15-year franchise deal that lets Verizon delay and, thus, heavily discount, its contribution toward public-access television. A vote on the cable franchise could come Thursday. Council has a chance to improve the terms of a proposed agreement with Verizon so that the civic interests of the city's residents are better served.

IF WE THE PEOPLE do not have access to the channels of communication, what good is freedom of speech? Our present ruling Fathers seem to be ignoring this basic fact. A 19-year-old city ordinance has required the establishment of a public access cable TV system-an electronic speaker's soap box and much more. The refusal of the city administrations since 1983 to implement this law has led to the recent filing of a First Amendment federal court lawsuit against the City by the Philadelphia Community Access Coalition and over a dozen other organizations Two thousand other cities across America have public cable TV channels, including all the largest cities-except Philadelphia.

After weeks of legal maneuvering, the three Democrats on the Township Committee ended public access on cable television's Channel 18, outvoting the two Republicans, who wanted to keep it. Republican committee member Brian Bartlett called the action a "possible attempt to eliminate the public's First Amendment rights. " The Democrats have been trying to eliminate public access on the local cable TV channel since July, expressing concern that someone might want to air offensive programming.

When cable television finally came to Philadelphia in the mid-1980s, part of the plan called for public-access channels that would enable everyday people to put programs on the little screen. A decade later, it still hasn't happened. Everybody agrees on the terms of the deal: The three cable companies serving Philadelphia are supposed to set up and outfit a public-access studio, and the city is supposed to finance its operation. This deal was formally spelled out in the 1985 franchise agreements between the city and the cable companies; the federal 1984 Cable Act said that the cable companies did not have to pay operating costs.

After months on the back burner, plans to create a public-access cable channel to serve Berlin Township, Clementon, Lindenwold and Pine Hill are cooking again. The school boards and governing bodies of all four towns and the Lower Camden County Regional District that binds them together have approved spending $1,363 each for equipment to get the cable channel up and running. The channel, which will be based at Pine Hill's John Glenn Elementary School and broadcast on Garden State Cable Co.'s Channel 18, will be a community bulletin board for public service announcements - such as school closings due to inclement weather or school board meeting times.

Has it been only three years since Mayor Street's administration endorsed launching a public-access cable television station in Philadelphia? And only two decades since the city's cable franchise law established the legal framework for a TV outlet for amateur broadcasters? How the years do roll . . . on . . . by. If public-access TV ever debuts in Philadelphia, its first arts-and-culture offering should be a community theater production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

By Michele S. Byers It's been six months since Superstorm Sandy pounded New Jersey, and summer is almost upon us. Towns up and down the coast are preparing for Memorial Day weekend and the arrival of beach lovers, fishermen, surfers, and boaters whose tourism dollars keep the Shore economy ticking. Many Shore towns are still busy with post-Sandy repairs, like cleaning debris from the sand, helping businesses and homeowners recover, and rebuilding boardwalks. And they're counting on receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal funds to replenish eroded beaches and build dunes.

TRENTON - New Jersey lawmakers decided Thursday not to put stronger public access guarantees into a bill governing funding for beach replenishment projects in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The Senate Environment and Energy Committee agreed with advocates who argued for better access, but said it wanted to know whether there was evidence that projects had ever been rejected for funds as a result. The panel said it might consider amending the bill in the future to add access requirements.

Bensalem Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo calls his township's five-mile waterfront a "mishmash" of uses. There are light industry and chemical storage; parks and older apartment houses; riverside cottages and the 18th-century Andalusia estate. But on 45 open acres on State Road just over the Philadelphia line, tucked between a truck yard and small warehouses, the mayor sees the future taking shape. A builder will start building and selling the first of 600 homes, including townhouses, condominiums, and 16 customized, million-dollar houses.

A proposed conservation center that would serve as a bird and wildlife sanctuary, as well as help city schoolchildren gain a better understanding of science and nature sounds like a wonderful project with which few people could find fault. But the National Audubon Society and Outward Bound Philadelphia's proposed East Park Leadership and Conservation Center would be built on publicly owned land in Fairmount Park, and some city residents question whether the center would provide enough free public access.

NEWARK, N.J. - Rules recently implemented by New Jersey's environmental authority unjustly limit the public's access to beaches and waterways while protecting the interests of industry and wealthy landowners, two environmental groups claim in a lawsuit filed against the state. The notice of appeal was filed Tuesday in Superior Court in Trenton by the NY/NJ baykeeper and the Hackensack riverkeeper. It claims the state Department of Environmental Protection exceeded its authority when it adopted the rules last month.

Gov. Corbett is wrongly trying to circumvent Pennsylvania's open-records law by declaring his daily schedule off limits to public scrutiny. Is he trying to hide something? The governor's negative response to a reasonable request by the media to know what's on his daily agenda has morphed into a crucial challenge that could undermine the state's fledgling Office of Open Records and have a chilling effect on government openness. Corbett and his lawyers have put up roadblocks ever since Associated Press reporter Mark Scolforo filed a simple request in February 2011 to look at the governor's schedule and e-mails.

THE STONE staircase, sandwiched between rowhouses and connecting Water Street and Front Street on an Old City block, seems like any ordinary set of old steps. Residents store their trash cans on them, and fallen leaves line the treads, which dip a bit in the middle from the masses that have climbed up and down them. But neighbors of the Wood Street Steps in Old City say they are a historic treasure, the last remaining steps of about a dozen such staircases William Penn in 1684 ordered be built to ensure public access to the increasingly congested Delaware River waterfront.

Bob Martin is commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Gov. Christie and I view excellent public access to our ocean beaches, bays, and rivers in New Jersey as a fundamental right for everyone in our state. As millions of residents and visitors know, New Jersey already has wonderful access to our 127 miles of beaches and shoreline. To further enhance access and help redevelop urban waterfronts, the Department of Environmental Protection this month has adopted a public access rule that sets strict requirements but also provides flexibility.

A controversial proposal that would deny public access to records of private managers of charter schools has surfaced again in the Pennsylvania legislature after it was rebuffed during the summer. Disagreement over the proposed exemption to the state's Right-to-Know law was one of the reasons that a package of charter law changes submitted in late June was shelved until this fall. The proposal was part of a 53-page amendment inserted into a special education funding bill in an effort to get the charter changes passed along with the budget.

A controversial proposal that would deny public access to records of private managers of charter schools has surfaced again in the Pennsylvania legislature after it was rebuffed during the summer. Disagreement over the proposed exemption to the state's Right-to-Know law was one of the reasons that a package of charter law changes submitted in late June was shelved until this fall. The proposal was part of a 53-page amendment inserted into a special education funding bill in an effort to get the charter changes passed along with the budget.