we saw that...

day 17 of gannett/town talk & media general/kalb media blackout of alexandria city council rebroadcast ordinance violation

we noticed that in today's gannett/alexandria daily town talk's "city notebook" the reporter karina donica completely failed to report the 21 december 2007 special alexandria city council meeting regarding the star tek lease. to add insult to injury the corporate media fails to report the apparent violation by the city of alexandria of their own ordinance regarding the broadcast/rebroadcast via public access channel 4 of regular and special city council meetings.

reading ms. donica's city notebook column its plain to see that gannett/the town talk and ms. donica monitor channel four because regarding the c.u.r.e. meeting ms. donica writes:

CURE Commission continues work
While some meetings held by the newly formed Commission on Utility Reform and Equity (CURE) are behind closed doors, some of its meetings have begun to air on Channel 4 throughout the day.

in the video of the first meeting, gannett/the town talk and ms. donica must have witnessed the alexandria mayor when he stated that the meeting is being held on 21 december 2007 after 2:00 p.m. the special city council meeting was held on the same date and according to the agenda began at 5:00 p.m.

not only will gannett/the town talk and media general/kalb refuse to report on the violation of the rebroadcast ordinance they refuse to even report that a special city council meeting was ever held!

we know that the meeting was held because the city council's agenda for 08 january 2008 says at item: 1) Approval of minutes taken from regular meeting held 12/18 and special meeting held 12/21.

this is local attorney greg upton. mr. upton is the spokesman for a local citizens group of around forty "business leaders" who have banded together because they are tired of what they see as alexandria city council shenanigans and illegality. its bad for business they say.

mr. upton says that "you cant negotiate whether you're going to live by the charter or not, i mean thats the basic rule of law. it's rules by which we're governed and thats why it concerns us as a group. it's such a fundamental issue." [video]

yet when it comes to the publics as well as other businesses and businesses interested in locating to alexandria; who might like to see how the city council might treat them judging by how they observe the star tek lease proceedings, right to know -- mr. upton and his group sit on their hands and do nothing.

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