Public access? Not so much, report finds

But in Medford, the city’s cable station produced 13 films over the last several years starring board members. The films had names like “The Mob-a-Musical’’ and “Sunshine Away,’’ a horror film in which a masked man with a switchblade attacks a bloody faced rival on a dirt road in the woods.

Not the usual snore-producing public access fare. But what about those forums? A report released yesterday said that the station, TV3 Medford, focused so much on producing its own films that the public was shut out. The station even failed to air some shows on local candidates before Election Day, the report said.

“Alas, even the Medford City Parade, a traditional and much-loved local event, found it could not march to the beat of TV3,’’ Marie O. Jackson Thompson, a retired district court judge, wrote in her report.

Jackson recommended a management and financial overhaul at the station, including discipline or ousting of the station’s chairman of the board.

“The board . . . must take its collective heads from behind the movie camera and manage to set the operational and business practice of TV3,’’ Thompson wrote in an Aug. 5 report to Mayor Michael J. McGlynn of Medford.

Frank Pilleri, chairman of the station’s 13-member board, declined to comment yesterday.

The 13-page report, written after a seven-month review of station operations, is the newest chapter in a long-running saga over public access television in Medford. The station is funded by fees charged to Medford cable subscribers and available through the city’s cable contract with Comcast.

TV3 Medford broadcasts programs created by residents and is separate from two other channels that broadcast city government meetings and school events.

For a $30 yearly fee, residents may join the station and learn from staff how to produce shows that air on TV3. But there are only 106 members in a city with an estimated 21,000 cable subscribers, according to the station.

“We do the best we can to reach out to people,’’ said Dan Sarno, the station manager since November. “We have new members and programs.’’

Yesterday, a lawyer representing TV3 Medford accused the city of conducting a “witch hunt’’ driven more by politics than public concern.

“They just want to pull the plug on TV3,’’ said David Skerry, a Medford lawyer. “They’re upset because they can’t control the programming.’’

Residents have been upset about the station for months. Thompson was hired by McGlynn to conduct a hearing to evaluate how effectively the nonprofit station was meeting residents’ needs, said City Solicitor Mark Rumley.

“There were concerns dealing with issues of membership participation and the makeup of the board of directors,’’ said Rumley, a former board member of the cable station, who wrote his own report on TV3 last year.

An audit of the station’s finances for 2006 and 2007, conducted at Rumley’s recommendation, was inconclusive because the board did not provide enough financial information, according to a copy of the audit.

McGlynn, reached by phone yesterday, said he was vacationing and had not read the judge’s report, though he planned to do so over the weekend.

Thompson, who was paid $2,800 by the city, spent seven months reading reports, interviewing staff, and conducting a two-day hearing last fall. Skerry filed a protest to the hearing, after Thompson discussed the makeup of the board with the station manager before the hearing, he said.

But the hearing went forward, and Skerry was ejected soon after it started for interrupting a witness giving testimony, he said.

“They had me thrown out,’’ Skerry said, recalling he was escorted by two Medford police officers. “It was a kangaroo court.’’

There is nothing playful about Thompson’s report, which is sharply critical of the station programming and management. Productions of independent films such as “Sunshine Away’’ did little to attract new members and tied up production equipment for hours, she wrote.

“If making the films was the [principal] means of recruiting new members, it failed abysmally,’’ she wrote, adding in a footnote that “Sunshine Away’’ was edited at the studio, “depriving a member of his use of his time.’’

Lance Reenstierna, a board member who produced “Sunshine Away,’’ did not return a call seeking comment.

It is unclear from the report whether the city can remove directors. As a private nonprofit, TV3 Medford appoints or elects 12 of its board members, and the mayor appoints one more.

Thompson wrote that the board should strive to have a diverse membership reflecting the overall population of the city and that its members should be better trained in disability awareness.

Record-keeping, including financials and minutes of meetings, must also be improved, she wrote.

The report only makes recommendations to improve station management and has no binding legal effect. Skerry said the board will review the report.

“Absolutely, we’ll look at it,’’ he said. “But we’ll do so with a jaundiced eye.’’

Kathy McCabe can be reached at kmccabe@globe.com.