Director hurls accusations at ACTV board members

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on February 16, 2007

The same night Amherst Community Television board members were to have signed a 10-year contract with the town, their president was hospitalized with heart palpitations and the outgoing interim executive director accused the board of incompetence.

Isaac Ben Ezra, the president of ACTV, whose signature is required on the long-negotiated contract, was said by friends to be doing well after being rushed to the hospital with heart palpitations Feb. 8.

The problems at ACTV, the nonprofit corporation that operates Amherst's public, education and government cable access channels, could take much longer to resolve.

James MacAllister, the interim executive director who had been seeking the permanent position, announced Thursday he is no longer interested in the job, in part because of the lack of support he and his staff say they have received from some members of the board.

The environment created by the board, MacAllister said, "is quite unlike, and many times more unpleasant, than anything I have ever encountered in my 30-plus years as a working scriptwriter and video producer."

MacAllister had prepared a long statement outlining his concerns, which he started reading aloud at the board's meeting. But members cut him off, saying they would review his written remarks and address them another time.

Member Paulette Brooks agreed the board needs to do better. Although it has consistently provided programming (funded through the town by Comcast, its cable provider), ACTV has had a tumultuous history that has kept replaying itself, Brooks said.

MacAllister is only the latest executive director to leave after a short tenure.

"From my understanding, there are always factions, and the board has not worked well with the executive director," Brooks said. "It was only a matter of time before this board would deal with the things former boards have dealt with."

Board members, in recent months, have been unable to respond to MacAllister's requests for things like staff evaluations, because they were tied up negotiating the contract, Brooks said.

The town renewed its license with Comcast in recent months but had not until this week reached an agreement with ACTV. Town Manager Laurence Shaffer, with whom ACTV negotiated its 10-year contract, said the new agreement differs from previous ones in requiring that capital funding remain with the town - not ACTV - until equipment is purchased. Equipment also will be clearly marked to indicate the town owns it.

"I'm confident it's fiducially responsible and provides the services we want," Shaffer said Monday at a Select Board meeting.

MacAllister has been a hardworking, creative interim executive director, board members agree. In a personnel evaluation dated Feb. 4, BenEzra, Brooks and member Jean Haggerty called MacAllister a hands-on leader who deals with difficult issues head-on, shows initiative, works well with the staff and has technical expertise and a commitment to excellence.

Sean Kinlin, production manager at ACTV, credited MacAllister with helping to attract record numbers of residents to ACTV to take classes. While hardly anyone used to be interested in learning how to produce television shows, the classes are filled to capacity now, Kinlin said.

But MacAllister sometimes "expresses his distaste for amateurish work," board members wrote, and he and has shown an "adversarial attitude toward the board."

In his critique, MacAllister said ACTV, "unlike the vast majority of nonprofits," gives the board instead of the membership power to change the bylaws, "an invitation for the abuse of power."

Board members also have no particular experience in how a TV station works, and some haven't any interest in acquiring this experience, MacAllister wrote. "Yet they insist that they run the station."

Many of the board's actions, MacAllister said, "display a callous indifference to a staff that serves ACTV very well and for little reward."

Brooks said, "(MacAllister is) a great guy and he has a lot of support from the staff. I think the board is looking like the bad guy. Yet the board is taking his suggestions seriously. We're looking at the bylaws and the way the organization runs itself to find out why it produces this chaos."

MacAllister, who used to work for the state Board of Library Commissioners teaching video production, and was later on the staff at Tufts New England Medical Center, said his graduate studies in geography take up much of his time now. Despite his frustrations with the board, needing to spend more time on his studies is the primary reason for deciding to leave ACTV now, he said.

"I'm feeling a little bruised and battered and mostly I'm upset because I've put six months of work into this place and I feel it is not going to result in anything."

MacAllister said he doubts the board will be able to rise to the challenges he has identified. "The board can't fix the problem," he said. "The board is the problem."