Do you have a spare dollar? Would you like to purchase your very own television station? Well, based on legislation that is sitting on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk right now (Assembly Bill 523), the Coast Community College District Board of Trustees can literally sell this significant public asset for "less than market value" (this is pulled directly from the language of the bill). Current state law requires that if the district wants to sell off an asset, the must sell it to the highest bidder. This is to make sure that there are no gifts of public funds, and that taxpayers are always be well represented when such sales occur.
I’ve already written quite a bit about this legislation, which you can read here. To sum up the situation in one paragraph: Coast Community College District owns the KOCE Public Television Station. Annually, the station is losing millions of dollars and is a financial drain for the District. Trustees decided to put the station up for sale, and at the same time were working with a Foundation formed to support the station (the KOCE Foundation) as they put together a bid to purchase the station from the district. That said, the bidding opened and low and behold, there was substantial interest in buying KOCE from a religious broadcasting firm, DayStar, out of Texas. DayStar is willing to pay the most for the station (by many, many millions of dollars) but the Trustees was to sell the station to the KOCE Foundation. This desire to sell the station for so much less ($18 million) not only constitutes a de facto gift of public money to this Foundation, but it is also against the law (so ruled the courts, who nullified the sale).
Now the Trustees and the Foundation are trying to pull an end-run on taxpayers with this legislation to literally change the law to allow Coast to sell the station on the cheap to the Foundation. Existing legislation was gutted so that this current bill could be amended into its place, and everything was done with such secrecy that DayStar, the highest bidder, didn’t even know about the proposed legislation! Well, a lot of attention has been paid to this bogus bill, and I am pleased to let you know that NOT ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATOR was willing to cast a vote for Assembly Bill 523. It was passed out of the legislature by liberal Democrats, some of whom have it in for any kind of religious-based broadcasted coming online. Now it sits on the Governor’s desk.
The FlashReport has dubbed this bill the winner of the 2006 Legislative Golden Trash Can Award as it is such a bad piece of public policy. It is our hope that it will earn a Gubernatorial veto, and it has garnered a prominent spot in our "20 Worst of the Worst" (as compiled by State Assemblymen Chuck DeVore and Rick Keene) on which the Governor is being given a, "veto batting average."
None of this information is really new. But there is something new which caused me again appreciate how bad this whole deal stinks. Apparently Mel Rogers, the President of KOCE (a very nice guy, very capable) has sent a letter around, on KOCE Stationary, signed by him with his title of President, KOCE TV, where is asking the recipients of the letter (presumably it has gone out to thousands, including those who have donated to the station over the years) urging them to click a link or use a sample letter to lobby the Governor to sign the bill, saying: "…prevent the station from being taken over by an out-of-state televangelist network."
According to the KOCE website, nearly 25% of the moneys that come into the station are from the government ("Corporation" for Public Broadcasting, other government entities) — and because if this public support, I don’t think that it is appropriate for a taxpayer supported entity to be lobbying on legislative matters. Don’t get me wrong, this sort of this happens all of the time, but that definitely does not make it right. It really bothered me.
I will restate something important that I have said before. I am a big fan of KOCE and its programming, and I have a number of friends (at least they were before I started hammering on this ill-conceived legislation) who work for the station.
But that said, I would never presume to give a de facto $18,000,000 subsidy to the KOCE Foundation to operate the station any more than I condone the money that we send to Washington, D.C., in our taxes that comes back to fund a television station. I simply do not believe that the financing of television is a proper role for the government. Period.
I have attached the letter from Rogers for you to see — so perhaps you can join me in rolling your eyes as we watch so many public resources (this letter is on top of whatever unknown resources the station and the College Trustees are throwing into strategic advice and lobbying) being spent to try and pass this bad bill that will gauge taxpayers.
While my comment at the top of this post about the Foundation being able to buy the TV station for a dollar was meant as a funny point – ‘exaggeration for emphasis’ – the point is a sober one. No one should be able to have an earmarked exemption (which is what this is, it applies to no one else) to be able to allow public assets to be sold at below-market value.
