Thursday, July 15, 1999
Videomakers get last laugh on council
BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The one-time outlaws of Villa Hills piled into a limousine the other day and laughed their way into Cincinnati. They were headed for the national Hometown Video Festival, to pick up an award.
God love America. Where else can such a thing occur? Ordinary citizens get their hands on a video camera, decide they're disgusted with city government and put their point of view on cable television for free.
Then they win an award for it. Never mind that their show is less than professional-looking — sort of a cross between Wayne's World and C-SPAN, with weirder camera angles. This isn't Hollywood here. The homemade look is in.
On and off for the last year and a half, three Villa Hills residents have trained their cameras on contentious meetings in their city and in Crescent Springs. These meetings have ended up on cable channel 21, which is set aside for public access. Last year, certain city officials tried to block the broadcasts. They accused the trio of biased editing that made them look stupid. Former Crescent Springs Mayor Ken Robinson even demanded the return of the meeting tapes.
The outlaws didn't blink. Instead, they got more ambitious.
Financial planner Steve Devoto and lawyer Steve Schletker now do a show called Northern Kentucky Live, in which they invite people to discuss issues of public interest. They make sure the audience is packed with supporters of one side or the other, and for humor, they give out goofy prizes such as luxury stays at the Kenton County Jail.
The third member of the group is Lois Hall, a longtime Villa Hills resident. She still attends meetings with her camera rolling.
Last week, the trio took a limousine to the Omni Netherland Plaza Hotel for the 22nd annual Hometown Video Festi val. It honored 300 producers from around the country for programs aired on public-access cable channels. Other Northern Kentucky award-winners were Brenda Sebastian of Community Pentecostal Church and David Schmidt and Jason Dudas of the Community Program Center in Latonia.
Mr. Devoto, Mr. Schletker and Ms. Hall won in the election coverage category for a show they taped last year. In it, they shadowed several of their favorite candidates around Crescent Springs and Villa Hills.
One of those candidates was Claire Moriconi, the new mayor of Crescent Springs. She and other fans joined the trio for their ride to the Omni.
When their award was announced, Ms. Moriconi stood and cheered.
It's a funny thing about public-access cable, says Mr. Robinson, the deposed mayor. Fairness apparently isn't required, even when elections are at stake, he says.
When he approached the Northern Kentucky Telecommunications Board about pulling the coverage of Crescent Springs, he was told to make his own show in rebuttal.
Instead, he took his lumps and lost re-election.
“Nothing they do is nonbiased or nonpolitical,” says Steve Clark, the mayor of Villa Hills. He had his own run-in with the amateur producers last year.
At a Villa Hills meeting, they taped his wife talking to a resident who later spoke in favor of a proposed tax increase. The group members were against the increase. Their tape of the meeting aired on public access — with an arrow pointing to Mrs. Clark and explaining her relationship to the mayoral candidate.
“I feel it's very bad behavior to do that to someone's wife,” Mr. Clark says.
It was allowed, though. Free speech and all.
For their part, the citizen-producers lately have been trying to develop a softer side. In cooperation with the city, for instance, they're taping a retrospective on Villa Hills history to celebrate the new millennium.
“I don't want people to think our only mission in this is to stir the pot,” Mr. Schletker says.
Good luck with that one, guys.
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email
her at ksamples@enquirer.com
SAMPLES ARCHIVE
