Sunday, October 01, 2006

Slimey California Politics

If you think PBS is Liberal and carries a message, you need look no further for the proof.

BACKGROUND:   KOCE-TV is a PBS station owned by Coast Community College.   It has been a losing proposition for years and the community college wants to sell it.   Only not to anyone, especially not on the open market to a televangelist network.

Daystar Television, a televangelist group, offered $40 million for the station.   The college trustees outright refused the Daystar offer and accepted a $28 million offer from the non-profit fundraising KOCE Foundation, only $8 million of which was cash.   The rest was in long-term loans, with interest.   The college sold the station to their own foundation in 2003.   Shortly after the sale they renegotiated with the Foundation and accepted an even lower offer that changed the 30-year promissory note to no interest.  Daystar sued and the sale was overturned twice. The court called the sale "the rankest form of favoritism."  [The decision was unpublished and only available online for a brief time. OC Blog comments on decision.]

This is where the California Assembly and Senate took over.   Both are dominated by Democrats who passed AB523 to make an exception to allow Coast Community College to sell to the lowest bidder.   State law requires such sales be cash, so the bill was essential to make an exception for KOCE.

The good news?   Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.   The lession:   the California legislature has, once again, been given cover by the Los Angeles Times.   Democrats claim Daystar's victory was due to representation by a former California Republican legislator, completely ignoring the "rankest form of favoritism" charge by an impartial court and the flat refusal of the California Supreme Court to review the case.

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