CALL TO ACTION! PRESERVE COMMUNITY ACCESS NOW!

CALL TO ACTION! PRESERVE COMMUNITY ACCESS NOW!

Ask your Senators & Representatives to support the Community Access Preservation Act by faxing them here!

The Alliance has launched a campaign to Preserve Community Access Now - to pass the Community Access Preservation Act!  Our goal is to get co-sponsors for the bill in the House, get a version filed in the Senate, get the bill passed by Congress, and signed by the President - before the 2010 summer recess.

On October 8 Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin filed the Community Access Preservation Act, which, if enacted, would preserve and protect PEG access channels in four ways. The Alliance, along with NATOA, worked with Congresswoman Baldwin to craft this bill (HR 3745). 
This bill:

  1. Allows PEG fees to be used for any PEG-related purposes;
  2. Ends operators' discriminatory treatment of PEG channels;
  3. Directs the FCC to study and report on the effects recent states' video franchising legislation have had on PEG access; and
  4. Defines all video services delivered to the home over wire as "cable" for the purposes of the act, regardless of the transmission protocol used.

There are a number of steps community media advocates can take to help in this campaign:

Fax your Representative and Senators today! Use our free and simple online fax tool.  Ask them to support HR 3745 - we need co-sponsors in the House, and a companion bill in the Senate.  Please personalize these letters as best you can - speak to the value PEG access channels play in your own community, and the loss your community would suffer without them. When they take positive action, we will let you know, so you may thank them.

Your faxed letters won't be enough!  Meet your Congressional representatives face-to-face as soon as possible! Meet them in both their home district offices and in Washington.  Give them the bill, explain how it will benefit you and their local area, and ask them to support the bill.

Your own voice won't be enough!  Mount a local support campaign! Ask your board, your staff, your constituents, your partner organizations to call/email/fax/write a letter to your Senators and Representatives asking them to support the bill.

Visit our website! There you'll find more info for mounting your local campaigns, such as this 1-page summary of the bill, this 2-page summary of the harm PEG access has recently suffered, the bill itself, and more!  We will be adding more to this website as the campaign proceeds.

Volunteer or donate to help!  Call or email us (volunteer@alliancecm.org) to find more ways you can engage to help get this bill passed.

Thank you for lending your voice to this important campaign to protect your communities' voice!

In Alliance,

Greg Epler Wood
Managing Director
Alliance for Community Media
1100 G Street NW, Ste. 740
Washington, DC  20005
202-393-2650