I thought this was an interesting letter in today's (Jan 9) Olympian:

"Thurston Community Television in jeopardy"

On Dec 20, the three Republican members of the Federal Communications Commission ignored the passionate pleas from the two Democrats and gave the telephone companies exactly what they want. Cities across the country will have only 90 days to offer a franchise to competitors of cable. In addition, all in-kind services, public education government money, institutional networks, channel space and cable drops will have to come out of the 5 percent franchise fees at whatever the new provider wishes to charge.

What this means for Thurston County is a significant reduction of funding for TCTV and no guarantee that existing TCTV channels will be carried on new cable or telephone video services. It lets new providers begin to operate a network simply by refusing to do anything for 90 days until the mandatory timetable is up. Then existing cable companies will claim it is an unlevel playing field until they get out of franchise obligations as well. If this happens, it is the end of Thurston Community Television.

Our hope survives in reports that the FCC doesn't have the legal authority to do this. This rogue commission is out of control. We need to jump on the backs of our congressional representatives and make them overturn the new illegal ruling.

For more information, go to www.saveaccess.org.

Robert Kam, Olympia

This appears to be an assault on community media. Our government has become an agent of corporatism. I wonder what we can do in Olympia to protect ourselves against this assault.