December 13, 2006

MEMO TO: BATV BOARD OF DIRECTORS

RE: LETTER OF REFUTATION FOR PERSONNEL FILE OF DAN SHANAHAN

This email attachment serves as a refutation of a letter submitted to me by the Batavia Access Television, Incorporated (BATV) Board of Directors(Board). The letter was hand-delivered October 27, 2006 by Kermit Carlson and Alan Wolff following the adjournment of the BATV Board meeting. I wish to refute that letter for the following reasons:

1) In the first paragraph, an extreme disciplinary action is being applied with no previous documentation, and it does not follow the process that is outlined in the draft BATV Employee Handbook, which states:

Disciplinary action may include: 1) a verbal warning, 2) a written warning,
3) a written warning signed by both the employer and the employee.

If I had received a verbal warning, as stated in Paragraph 4 of the letter, then the next disciplinary action, according to the draft of the BATV Employee Handbook, should have been a written warning. It should not have been a week without pay.

2) The second paragraph states a program sponsorship policy created in 2004 was violated. If there were a sponsorship policy written in 2004, then why has BATV spent the last three months creating a sponsorship policy? There were discussions in 2004 of creating a policy, but no policy was ever drafted and approved by the Board. There has been a program submission policy for BATV Producers on the website as part of the BATV Policies and Procedures for Certified Resident Producers:
Article III. Program Submission and Program Scheduling

1) Certified Resident Producers shall submit programming. Non-resident producers need to be certified by obtaining a signature from a resident sponsor. All program submissions shall include a completed Program Scheduling Request Form.

Article III, as noted above, was copied from ACTV and WCTV rules. BATV never created a Program Scheduling Request Form as part of Article III. In addition to the website material mentioned in the confidential letter, there has never been a BATV Program Submission Form on the website. There still is no BATV-approved program sponsorship policy to this date. If the Board chooses to accept policy by extracting select discussion points from the various minutes of 2004, then those same minutes would declare that the current BATV Executive Committee requires a revision to BATV bylaws to be considered a legitimate committee.

3) The third paragraph discusses editorial bias and balance. There is no BATV Employee Policy about editorial bias. There is nothing mentioned in the BATV Policies and Procedures or the BATV Bylaws that state BATV will be fair, balanced, or unbiased. The only policy that reflects the ideals of editorial bias and balance are a part of BATV Policies and Procedures, Article III, Paragraph 4:

d) BATV will make a good faith, concerted effort to produce and cablecast all board and council meetings of governmental bodies in the Batavia community (not necessarily sub-committee meetings). These tapes are not to be considered the official record of these meetings. BATV will also assist in producing and cablecasting all nonpartisan-moderated, community-oriented events.

I am aware of no documents in my personnel file to verify who told me or when I was told “on repeated occasions” about violating a policy on bias and balance.

4) Paragraph 4 mentions ignoring verbal warnings about policies. I know of no documents in my personnel file to justify the accusation of ignoring warnings. Paragraph 4 also states “the resolve by which it will act if you should again ignore the Board policies.” I have no idea what the resolve will be or what the policies are. The Board needs to be specific and state what the discipline will be. Moreover, the Board needs to define the policies, draft the policies, approve the policies, and then present the policies to staff. Imposing disciplines ahead of policies is unjust, unfair, and illegal.

5) Paragraph 5 discusses content issues about programming. When the BATV Board discusses and evaluates program content, content that does not violate BATV standards, the Board is applying their own editorial bias in stating the series Democracy University contains “strong, extreme viewpoints on several topics.” BATV should emulate the majority of public television by embellishing alternative viewpoints rather than denouncing them. Diversity in programming and synergy amongst varied opinion are what make public television great. I wish to clarify the details about my role with Democracy University. I discovered Democracy University through a free, public screening at Geneva Public Library in 2001. Soon after the screening I got permission from the producer to run the series. In 2002, the BATV Board stated I could not sponsor the program. They demanded I get a sponsor, and I chose John Dryden. The fact that the BATV Board decided in 2002 not to allow staff to sponsor Democracy University could be considered a form of editorial bias more commonly known as censorship. In 2004, unsavory language was part of a Democracy University episode that resulted in the creation of the BATV video disclaimer and the program submission form; these two items were created specifically for Democracy University in order to appease the internal conflict growing amongst BATV Board Members. There was no program sponsorship policy created since the program sponsorship issue was specifically a Democracy University content issue. There were never any issues with John Dryden being the strawman for Democracy University. The Board instituted the strawman. Since there was no sponsorship policy, John only submitted one form as a blanket form for the series, and determined that running it “late night” might appeal to a larger, adult audience. In past BATV meetings I admitted that I played the Democracy University series in September 2006 during daytime hours. I overlooked the program submission form’s suggested times because the program content did not violate any BATV content policy. I disregarded the suggested times, but I did not violate any program sponsorship policy because we do not have one. I should have been given a warning instead of a week without pay.

6) Paragraph 6 describes a “continued series issues [sic] of your unacceptable behavior” that was addressed by Kermit in verbal form.

The first issue in Paragraph 6 is my viewing of improper material on the internet. This issue only occurred once at or close to 5:30P on January 4, 2006 and was resolved with the school on the evening of January 10, 2006 when Alan McCloud requested a moment of my time following my equipment set-up at the Rosalie Jones Center. We discussed the use of the school network. I admitted to viewing some topless images of Shakira the evening of January 4 at BATV when Jenny was on vacation during the school’s winter break. Alan requested I avoid going to sites like those. I heeded Alan’s good advice. No problem. However, on March 1, 2006, the BATV Board held an executive session to discuss the employee handbook. Instead of discussing the handbook, the Board discussed, much to my surprise, my use of the internet on January 4, 2006. At that meeting the attending Board members received a copy of an incomplete log sheet and a letter. Both items were from Alan McCloud. The letter stated the issue was resolved with the school and that there was no illegal activity. Following executive session discussions, I was brought into the meeting shortly after Kermit presented me with the same incomplete log sheet and school letter. The letter states no site was “indicative of illegal or violent content.” It was determined that there was no discipline to be imposed from the school or BATV because there was no policy violation requiring discipline. The bigger issue exposed on March 1, 2006 was the lack of confidentiality in the BPS Computer Department. Someone from Batavia Public Schools leaked confidential information that made its way to a BATV Board member. With the issues of confidentiality and no BATV policy, the Board decided to adhere to the school letter that stated I had done nothing illegal in using the internet. There were discussions about my viewing school inappropriate sites, or sites that the school filters for its students and BATV. Sites such as Batavia MainStreet, Ebay, GagReport.Com, and WTTW have been blocked by the school network making it difficult to determine what is school appropriate. The meeting was taped, but I never got the minutes I requested that evening. I thought we put closure on this. This repeated charge against me feels like double jeopardy and harassment.

The second issue in Paragraph 6 relates to hosting a MoveOn.Org event at BATV with the nationwide, premiere screening of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. MoveOn.Org is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization. The screening happened on November 15, 2005 when hundreds of public access facilities like BATV got involved. Ten months passed before I was made aware of any issues with the MoveOn.Org event. In September 2006 it became an issue of content and editorial bias when Kermit mentioned the Wal-Mart video at the BATV Study Session. There were no policies violated in hosting that event or in showing videos that represented both sides of Wal-Mart. Actually a policy was being applied when BATV hosted MoveOn.Org:

d) BATV will make a good faith, concerted effort to produce and cablecast all board and council meetings of governmental bodies in the Batavia community (not necessarily sub-committee meetings). These tapes are not to be considered the official record of these meetings. BATV will also assist in producing and cablecasting all nonpartisan-moderated, community-oriented events.

The third issue in Paragraph 6 states that I was politically motivated to cablecast an open meeting of Kane County’s Finance Committee. I was never motivated by any means from any candidate or any person to show that meeting. It was an open meeting that was taped by Jenny Glick while I was on vacation in Colorado. I chose to schedule it because it was an open meeting that was taped for the BATV-10 viewers as part of our policy to make a concerted effort to cablecast meetings (see above). Stating that there was a direct request from a candidate to have me cablecast the meeting is fallacious and libelous. I will take a polygraph test to prove it. Will the Board accuser(s) do the same? When accusations of this magnitude are made, the Board should be specific as to the name of the candidate, what the candidate said, and when it was said. In this case, the Board is imposing a discipline on unfounded speculation that could prompt litigation from a disgruntled employee.

The documents mentioned above were made available or can be made available to the BATV Board. I would request that a copy of those documents (which I will submit at a future date), and a DVD copy of the March 1, 2006 meeting beginning from the point when I joined the meeting (the meeting was recorded on a videotape given to Allison) be included in my personnel file.

In closing, there is no job description for my position as Program Director of BATV, there is no approved BATV Employee Handbook, and there is no approved BATV Sponsorship Policy for program submissions. I am aware of no documentation in my personnel file that supports the accusations made in the October 27, 2006 letter. There seems to be no justification for imposing a week without pay. HOWEVER, there is justification for discipline by means of a warning. Depending on what documents are in my personnel file would determine whether the warning is verbal or written. The warning should be only for violating John Dryden’s information on his program submission form when I scheduled Democracy University at the wrong times in September 2006. Issuing a warning is the discipline I suggest the BATV Board reconsider if we are going to improve the relationship amongst the BATV Board and the BATV Staff. We all have to be understanding, be responsible, be honest, and be sensible to make BATV succeed. I’ve dedicated myself to Batavia Public Access TV for more than 20 years. Please help me nurture BATV for the next 20 years.

Sincerely,
Daniel J. Shanahan

DECEMBER 13, 2006