Future of CAT7 remains up in the air

CAT7 TV must have at least seven lives.

Following a year (2019) when the community access television channel was black almost as much as it was broadcasting, the station is black again following the dismissal of its only remaining employee on March 5.

Cable coordinator Eric Lipponen was present and the subject of a closed meeting with the Cloquet City Council that night. Immediately after the meeting was reopened, councilors voted unanimously to terminate Lipponen's employment with the city, on the recommendation of city administrator Tim Peterson.

Cable commission chair Pete Radosevich said the firing came as a surprise to him, although he thought something was up when he came to film a "Dragon Lady's" show with host Patty Murto and Lipponen's key card didn't work. Then city administrator Tim Peterson said they couldn't record the show.

"I was surprised, but not shocked," said Radosevich, longtime host of the "Harry's Gang" political talk show on CAT7. "City admin obviously had very serious concerns about his performance for some time."

Radosevich explained that the role of the cable commission is to advise the council. No one from the commission was part of the personnel hearing that night. However, the commission had chosen not to recommend that Lipponen's full-time probationary period - 90 days at 40 hours a week - be made permanent at its Jan. 28 meeting. Radosevich said personnel decisions should be handled by city administration rather than the advisory board.

"They did ask us to come up with a plan of things we'd like to see accomplished and chart (Eric's) progress, which led to the January 28 review of performance," he said. "The general consensus there - which was not unanimous - was that not enough progress had been made to justify leaving him at full-time."

Since March 6, the station has been dark. No one at City Hall knows how to run it, and the previous part-time employees who worked with Lipponen all left over the last 18 months, long before he was dismissed.

Blame game

Lipponen's dismissal came after more than a year of major issues with the station.

These included cutting Lipponen to half-time in January 2019 because of anticipated budgetary issues, moving the studio out of its longtime (and rent-free) space at Cloquet High School to a small space in the basement of City Hall, and ultimately the temporary failure of the station as the move - made without Lipponen there - resulted in damaged equipment and lost video files.

Previous interviews with Lipponen and copies of disciplinary files over that period appear to show a power struggle between city administration and the eight-year cable coordinator. Former administrator Aaron Reeves demanded Lipponen work at City Hall in the morning - when most recordings and Wilderness hockey games were in the evening - and report to him with recording schedules, etc. Lipponen resisted and tried to do his job the way he always had: solo, often working at home, and with little oversight.

Moving forward

Following the March 17 council meeting, Peterson said the city is "working as quickly as we can to get CAT7 back up and running." He declined to say what exactly was causing the holdup.

At its meeting last Thursday, March 19 - the first following Lipponen's dismissal - cable commission members discussed a possible plan to move the station to Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, which already has the Ojibwemowining Digital Arts & Storytelling multimedia production studios where students and staff have developed projects ranging from documenting campus happenings, making a weekly campus news show and supporting community activities.

"We produced a season of 'talk shows' for a Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Constitution Reform organization and cultural documentaries," explained Lyz Jaakola, a FDLTCC faculty member, who provided commission members with links to a number of videos students have produced at the college.

Also on the table, proposed by Radosevich, was a possible plan to run the community access station in conjunction with the Pine Knot News newspaper, where he is publisher and a co-owner.

The commission did not reach any kind of decision at its meeting last week, except to stress that it is vital to get the station back up and running again, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures keeping people away from churches that normally broadcast their services on CAT7.

Cable commission secretary Patty Murto said she tracked down the person who originally set up the community access station, and he is willing to contract to do the same again. The commission voted to pay the person to get the station back on the air.

"If we could get CAT7 on the air, it could be another COVID-19 information point for local residents," Murto said. "For those people that are shut-ins or haven't signed up for a newspaper, there isn't a good way of communicating with them. I've seen some Facebook groups pop up, but wouldn't it be nice to have all that information on help they could receive on CAT7, and updated daily."

CAT7 is entirely funded by Mediacom franchise fees, which bring in approximately $103,000 a year. A 15-year franchise agreement with Mediacom gives the city a franchise fee equal to 5 percent of Mediacom's annual gross revenues locally until 2030.