A few weeks back, I reported on the Reno City Council coming dangerously close to breaking Nevada’s open meeting law by polling consensus behind closed doors.

Another nail in the coffin of open government will be quietly pounded down this Tuesday. Charter Communications, which victimizes about half the households in the Truckee Meadows, will terminate government access programming to its basic and expanded basic customers.

The blackout results from an outrageous deal the Reno council made last year in selling out its ratepayers. The denizens of the downtown black tower didn’t even score 30 pieces of silver.

In order to keep public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channels widely available, Reno originally threatened to go to court. My cable ratepayers group and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., were likewise ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Other jurisdictions have successfully sued cable providers for pulling such skulduggery. At the last minute, Reno officials folded for less than nothing and didn’t even get kissed afterward.

Sparks, Washoe County and community access stations were moved to the higher-cost, lower-surfed digital tier. Government meetings were supposed to appear for a while on a single shared outlet, Charter Channel 13. It was bad enough that the agreement gave Reno control of Sparks and Washoe programs, but the cable bandidos quickly broke the deal. Turned out that it was technically too difficult or bothersome for Charter to stream Sparks and Washoe government meetings over the shared station, so Charter violated the contract and Reno got to keep its exclusive channel. Rolling over for corporate interests as always, the Sparks City Council and the Washoe County Commission never complained.

The never-shared channel goes away this week and Reno will join Sparks and the county in placing about one in six of their cable constituents in the dark about government activities. PEG programming will be permanently banished to channels 200, 213, 215, 216 and 217 unless you pay Charter extra for a digital converter. (Some, but by no means all, newer TV sets don’t require it.)

All of this underscores the importance of fighting to maintain and expand community media. In 1991-92, I served on the founding board of Sierra Nevada Community Access Television (SNCAT) and helped save it from extermination before launch. In recent years, I have done what I could to help it survive in an era when community media are dropping like flies all across the country, but not for lack of interest. The terminal disease is corporate greed that lusts after the cable bandwidth to scam for profitable new high-definition channels. Charter adds 16 of them this week, using roughly the same amount of bandwidth formerly reserved for the PEG stations.

SNCAT continues the good fight to survive in a tough environment. I am heading fundraising for the new community radio entity, which, with any luck, will broadcast over a new full-power FM station not too many months down the road. For now, we are working at re-engineering the radio-TV-webcast studio in SNCAT’s new digs at Reno’s Meadowood Mall. KJIV radio should be back webstreaming soon and with it, my show and its TV simulcast.

Please consider supporting the cause. Go to ReSurge.TV to contribute online or send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

You will find the complete history of these issues at the Web site or linked to the Web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com.

I know times are tight, but this is important. We must get non-corporate media off the endangered species list.

The Power of Community Media

Last week, the Northern Nevada International Center at the University of Nevada, Reno hosted a very impressive delegation of women leaders from various French-speaking African nations. I let my AfricaCorps know about it. Last year, NNIC brought in a large group of journalists from Africa. They toured SNCAT, including my radio-TV-webcast postage stamp of a studio. We had a great time.

As I compulsively do with everyone, I collected their e-mail addresses. The list proved useful for informing African media about the UNR event. I have already heard from several of last year’s visitors who thanked me for the news.

ADL Redux

The Anti-Defamation League is reconstituting its northern Nevada operations under the leadership of former Reno City Councilmember Judy Pruett Herman. I represented the Reno-Sparks chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at its formative meeting last summer. The ADL’s first event happens on Oct. 27 at the Atlantis Hotel in Reno and the guest speaker is very impressive.

Tom Martinez was a longtime member of the ultra-violent neo-Nazi white supremacist organization called The Order. He is co-author, with John Guinther, of “Brotherhood of Murder,” which also became a Showtime network movie starring Peter Gallagher, William Baldwin and Kelly Lynch. Martinez helped foil major terrorist activities including a Brinks armored truck robbery, which would have funded mass murder throughout the west. He has courageously refused federal witness protection in order to speak out against domestic terrorism. Given recent arrests all across the country, I think the event will be well attended.

Students will probably get in free with a small charge for adults. Watch this column and NevadaLabor.com for details.

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew Barbano is a 40-year Nevadan, second vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.