BAVC ED Ken Ikeda Calls Police On Community Access Producers At Public BAVC 12/16/2010

BAVC ED Ken Ikeda Calls Police On Community Access Producers At Publicly advertised BAVC 12/16/2010 Board Meeting

San Francisco Bay Area Video Coalition BAVC which has received over $800,000 from City Of San Francisco funds from the Technology Department called off their scheduled BAVC board meeting on 12/16/2010 and called the SF police to arrest producers for "trespassing" Their offices are on 2727 Mariposa St. offices next to KQED and Ken Ikeda, the Executive Director demanded that video taping of the publicly advertised BAVC board meeting be halted and when producers refused to stop the video taping he ordered the board members out of the meeting and called police to arrest the community access producers for trespassing.
This is the first time in the United States that a manager of a Community Access station has called the police to arrest community access producers for video taping a public meeting of their community access board.
Ikeda and his rubber stamp BAVC board of directors have come under growing pressure for SF City and County ethics violations and spending over $200,000 in city funds to rebuild a community access studio which is not allowed to be used by producers.

The management of BAVC has also demanded that the elected community board producers sign a statement drawn up by the community access
manager Jen Giloman. http://www.bavc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2395&Itemid=1974 When this was presented as an ultimatum by Giloman and her ally and Community Advisory Board chair Idell Wilson, some elected community board members objected and wanted a discussion on the document Jen Giloman with the support of the BAVC Community Advisory Board Chair Idell Wilson shut the discussion down. The suddenly introduced document would have prevented a new election until May and Idell Wilson who works in Ross.Mirkarimi's office did not want an election with the newly installed board since many members of the board want a change in chair of the board.
Ellison Horne, one of the elected board members who initially hesitated to sign but did sign on 12/15/2010 but this was not good enough for Giloman and BAVC. He was removed from his position when he showed up for the BAVC board meeting on 12/16/2010. He spoke out about the lack of democratic procedure and was joined by board members Ken Johnson and Stephen Leader.
San Francisco community access producers are investigating to the pressing of charges with the City and County of San Francisco that the community access station is being mismanaged and that the operator BAVC is flagrantly violating the franchise agreement by refusing to hold twice a year public BAVC board meetings.
Department of Technology Principle Admistrative Analyst DTIS-SFCC/Planning And Compliance Division officer Barry Fraser apparently still cannot get the complete financial audit of what Ikeda and the BAVC board have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of city funds on.
Supporters of Community Access in San Francisco should contact Barry Fraser and ask him why the city continues to spend public funds on this operation without proper oversight.
His number is (415)531-3976 and his email is barry.fraser(at)sfgov.org
Also supporters of Community Access should contact Ross Mirikirmi at Ross.Mirkarimi(at)sfgov.org along with other SF Supervisors and ask why they voted to continue to fund BAVC when it continuously violates the City Franchise agreement and calls the police on community access producers. The producers will also be meeting with the incoming Mayor and District Attorney when they are installed to call for them to take action to defend community access and do proper oversight and investigation of these violations of free speech and democratic rights at community access.
For more information on future plans of supporters of San Francisco community access contact lvpsf(at)igc.org