APTV may have new Executive Director soon

Here’s hoping APTV’s glory days are ahead!

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Alabama Educational Television Commission calls special meeting to discuss new APT executive director

Published: Friday, August 17, 2012, 3:18 PM     Updated: Friday, August 17, 2012, 5:50 PM

By Bob Carlton — The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The Alabama Educational Television Commission, which has come under attack since it fired Alabama Public Television executive director Allan Pizzato in June, has called a special meeting for Saturday to discuss hiring Pizzato’s replacement.

According to a notice posted this afternoon on the Alabama Open Meetings Act website, one of the items on the agenda for Saturday is the “selection/hiring/appointment and discussion of Executive officers including but not limited to Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.”

The special called meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. at APT headquarters in Birmingham. [Ed. note: The meeting is scheduled for 3PM, Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 2112 11th Avenue South, Suite 400, Birmingham, AL 35205; Contact: 205-328-8756. The Open Meetings Act notice was filed Friday, August 17, 2012 at 12:09:08 PM, and described a “special/called” meeting type.]

Ferris Stephens, chairman of the AETC, confirmed this afternoon that the commission plans to vote on a new executive director at Saturday’s meeting, but he

Missile Defense Agency Employees Watch Porn At Work

What is wrong with those people?

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Missile Defense Staff Warned to Stop Surfing Porn Sites

By Tony Capaccio – Aug 2, 2012 4:47 PM CT

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency warned its employees and contractors last week to stop using their government computers to surf the Internet for pornographic sites, according to the agency’s executive director.

In a one-page memo, Executive Director John James Jr. wrote that in recent months government employees and contractors were detected “engaging in inappropriate use of the MDA network.”

Standard Missile-3 is launched in Kauai, Hawaii, during a Missile Defense Agency test of its sea-based midcourse program. Photograph: U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Standard Missile-3 is launched in Kauai, Hawaii, during a Missile Defense Agency test of its sea-based midcourse program. Photograph: U.S. Navy via Getty Images

“Specifically, there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images,” James wrote in the July 27 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and DoD and regulations, consume network resources and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code,” he wrote.

Individuals identified as violating the rules face referral for “appropriate” disciplinary action, he wrote. They put “their security clearances in jeopardy, and are subject to suspension and removal from federal service or MDA sponsored contracts.”

Agency spokesman Rick Lehner said in an e-mail that

Goodbye & Good Riddance: Alabama Public TeeVee COO Charles Grantham resigns effective August 31 2012

FOR THE RECORD:
Good bye, and good riddance. Time to say ‘goodbye‘ to the old cr3w, and welcome a new day.

Why?

APTV has NOT yet achieved its potential.

That new and glorious day is ahead.

Thanks be to God that the old Board members, CEO, COO & CFO are gone.

Again, why?

They have NOT led APTV to glory.

Duh!

Hello?!?

If Alabamians were as rabid for APTV as they are for their cockamamie football team from Tuscaloosa, we’d have had a First Rate, Nationally Award-Winning organization & programs a long time ago.

The problem is, it was only once, and a very long time ago.

And we’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel ever since.

For example, why did APTV close the long-time Montgomery bureau, only to open a Washington, D.C. bureau?

Be sure to ask that of the fired CFO Pauline Howland & fired Executive Director Alan Pizzato. They’re likely to know.

Bear this in mind as well, my commentary, while critical, is in no way reflective upon those individuals as human beings. That is to say, I have no ‘axe to grind’ with any of them, and I have no reason to suspect or imagine that they’re anything other than fine people.

However, they have a job to do, and APTV has been sucking wind for way too long.

In the competitive arena, if you don’t earn market share or provide value, your business dwindles. Keep that up, and the CEO’s head will roll, along with the COO, CFO, and possibly members of the Board of Directors, as well.

And that’s exactly what has happened.

It’s time to change.

To that denunciation, I add this additional withering criticism: The second story indicates that Mr. “Grantham told reporters that commission chairman Ferris Stephens instructed him that he was no longer allowed to talk to the media about the recent upheaval at APT.”

That is an illegal act.

And someone like Ferris Stephens ought to know better than to do something as stupid as that, because he’s an Assistant Attorney General at the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.

Not only is the management of the network a matter of PUBLIC RECORD, but the employees have Freedom of Speech rights under the First Amendment.

Particularly, according to Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 384 (1987) “The threshold question . . . is whether [an employee’s] speech may be ‘fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern.'” There is little doubt that Mr. Grantham’s public speech may certainly be characterized as being on a matter of public concern.

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Alabama Public TV COO Charles Grantham Resigns

By Associated Press

Credit aptv.org / Alabama Public Television

The chief operating officer for Alabama Public Television has resigned after