Philadelphia Community Access Coalition
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MS. BALTER: Good late afternoon. My name is Ruth Balter (ph.).

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Good afternoon.

MS. BALTER: And thank you for your patience and involvement, Councilman Cohen.

I'm replacing Mel Silver. We are co-chair people of the Peace, Justice, and Environment Network of Delaware County, which includes a number of organizations in Philadelphia whose voices cannot be heard by the large TV audience in Philadelphia.

I want to, first of all, although this is -- I don't know whether you stole my thunder or I'm stealing yours, Councilman, but I want to applaud the varied, thoughtful, and powerful testimony provided here today illustrating the marvelous ideas and talents that need to be heard on public access television.

I want to also comment on the fact that we from small community groups -- sometimes minority thinking community groups -- are the last people on the program today. You know, I hope this doesn't regularly happen, but I've been to a number of other hearings when somehow or the other, the groupings have not been mixed. We've been selected as a community group, and here we are, at the very end of the program, when everyone ought to be involved with hearing some of what we have to say. And if we were interspersed during the whole hearing, then that would have been the case.

Some of my thinking is not going to be altogether different from Phyllis Gilbert, with whom I work very closely. So I ask you to take this under consideration. And I just wants to take a few minute to read some of Mel Silver's words, which I think are important, because he comments on the fact that this is a city that is proud of its history, including the writing of the United States constitution which promotes democracy, equality, and freedom of speech. That's repeating, you know, a thread throughout all of this. But as an ending speaker, I think it ought to be restated.

However, in this city, the phrase "freedom of speech" is a mockery if we don't have public access TV. Real freedom of speech in a democracy should allow any organization or individual in Philadelphia today to reach hundreds of thousands of people via public access TV. Instead, access to commercial or so-called public TV is, as we know, many of us available, I think it's been clear today, to the large corporations and wealthy political corporations who purchase time on these TV channels. Lower, middle-class, poor people, and their organizations are effectively excluded because we don't have those large amounts of money.

Democracy really calls for political and social equality, and that's why we are so fervent in urging City Council to move for the formation of a real public access TV channel as rapidly as possible.

And I would just like to add that I'm one of the representative groups within our coalition, our network. As such, I'm a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which did not appear today but asked me to inject their name and their concern about this issue.

And I'd just like to bring up one example of how the very important event was excluded from the consciousness of our community. And that is the hundreds, or maybe 150 or so, of Philadelphia people were present in an assemblage of 10,000 in the Hague Appeal for Peace that took place in the Hague, Netherlands. Many Philadelphia young people were in the Hague. The Society of Friends had a large contingent of young people in the Hague.

Their voices will not be carried and were not carried in our local press or TV. They have a message, they need to know that public access to their experiences is available, that their dedication to peace in the 21st century should be explored by others in our community. What could be a more pivotal issue that they are encouraged to express their experiences in accordance with their creativity to have public access available to communicate such a significant lesson in peace.

Thank you very much.

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