Following is a letter from OUSD Superintendent Tim Baird to the Ojai City Council members, addressing the council’s expressed wish to see a more detailed operational plan for public access management by the Nordhoff High School Media Arts Academy…
February 5, 2009
Dear City Council Members,
Thank you for considering Ojai Unified School District’s proposal to serve as your contractor to operate our local public access channel. I understand that the City Council has some questions regarding our plans to operate the public access channel and I would like to take this opportunity to answer these questions and clear up any misunderstandings that may exist between District and City staff on this issue.

First let me say that I agree completely that this arrangement is best served by a service agreement between the City of Ojai and OUSD. The draft MOU that we submitted was merely an attempt to lay out operational guidelines for our discussion and your understanding. Although I have not been able to attend the two City Council meetings where this issue has been discussed, I have watched the most recent meeting on DVD. I will use the rest of this letter to answer the questions raised in that meeting regarding this proposal.
Nordhoff High School is uniquely qualified to provide this service for the City and our community. One of our staff members has worked for a public access television station for five years. Another staff member has over thirty years of experience working in television, the movie industry, and all aspects of video production. A third staff member has over twenty years of graphic design experience. Nordhoff High School also is equipped with camera and studio production equipment. The school has a Media Arts Academy in operation that already has a strong community advisory team helping to expand our program. We also have dozens of students learning the craft of filmmaking, digital design, and business organization. I believe that Nordhoff High School would not just equal the service that our community received from Time Warner but would surpass it in many ways.
There has been some misunderstanding regarding the request for a “detailed plan” from OUSD. I have always assumed this arrangement to be a service agreement. I look at service agreements being a contract between the entity requesting the service and the provider of the service. The contract spells out timeframes, payment for services, and clearly articulated deliverables. When I heard a request for a detailed plan, I was attempting to clarify the timelines, the payment for service, and the deliverables, which in this case is the District providing eight hours of daily public broadcasting programming. These were the key issues that I thought the Council wanted spelled out in our service provider plan. Here are my thoughts on these issues.
We are flexible relating to the timelines. Longer is better for planning but I would understand if the City wanted to build in a shorter term trial period to see how operations are going.
Payment is always a key piece of service contract discussion. I noted that one council member stated that the contract was one-sided because all of the new revenues will go to the District. That is not entirely true. As with all service agreements, one side receives compensation and the other side receives service. For approximately $17,600 annually, the City of Ojai will receive daily public access television programming that will benefit the entire community. This is not something that the City or any one else in the community can do for the amount of money in question. As noted by the Council at the last meeting, at some point, the Council will have to purchase new cameras to film their meetings. The same is true for the Media Arts Academy. The $17,600 will not pay for all of the Academy’s equipment needs and none of their staff needs. In the end, both the City and the District will have to go into existing capital budgets to replace some of the equipment that will be used to support public access. This is no different than any other equipment need that the District or City already replaces on a regular basis.
As stated, the deliverables that the City will receive are eight hours of daily public access television broadcasting. This will be provided 365 days of the year. The service will be provided by trained adult staff members. Any additional educational component will be a value added extra that will benefit our students and the community.
Much of the Council’s discussion seemed to be focused on the educational aspects of the program so let me share with you what that may look like even though this probably falls outside of the service agreement parameters.
We have three highly qualified staff members who will head up this project. We currently teach courses in video production and digital design. I see students in both of these areas as our workforce, who will create content, film community events, design graphics, and operate a studio to accommodate community needs for the station. We have a number of professionals in our community who work in these areas who we will bring in to help coach students.
The new component that running a station will bring to our Academy is a station management class. Under the direction of a teacher/mentor and with support from our advisory board, this class will focus on the business aspects of running a television station. We will interview and hire a student station manager, a student program director, a student marketing director, a student finance director, and student support staff members to assist our faculty members in charge of the public access station in fulfilling their duties. Our plan is that the students will learn from real business professionals and our teachers how these duties are handled in a real business environment. This group of students will take numerous field trips to radio and television stations. We will also bring in real world counterparts from the greater Ojai and Ventura business communities to meet with students and share personal experiences from their management backgrounds. Students in the management class will ultimately be able to utilize the student work force in the other Media Arts Academy classes to meet the needs of the station. At this time, students will be working for grades but in the future I would like to see real monetary compensation provided to students in the station management class for work performed.
This is the basic overview of the program. This can and probably will change as we begin to develop the program with our staff, advisory board, and students. It has been my experience that this type of creative program development is organic and grows to fit the skills, talents, and needs of the individuals involved.
In conclusion, I would ask that you pass the ordinance for the additional funding and commit to a service contract with OUSD to operate our local public access television. This will cost the City nothing from current revenue and will return local public access broadcasting to our community. You will also be helping to develop our most important local resource, our young people. Thank you for considering this request.
Sincerely,
Tim Baird
Superintendent