I am responding to recent letters by Harvard Community Cable Access Committee members who have, yet again, distorted the truth about my husband. Keith Turner is an honorable, thoughtful, hardworking visionary who tried to help HCCAC become a vital force for communication, entertainment and education in Harvard. His proposal to achieve those goals (a public document on file at Town Hall) was rejected out of hand by HCCAC and the BOS in February of last year.
BOS/HCCAC lost an extraordinary resource when they dismissed Keith’s plan: Keith apprenticed himself as a cameraman to a documentary production team in 1983. Over the next 13 years he worked on films that won international acclaim, including two Academy Award nominations. As a director of photography his clients included National Geographic, BBC, WGBH, and the Discovery Channel, with his last film premiering at the Smithsonian. He directed subjects as diverse as Playboy Bunnies and President George Bush Sr. (not at the same time). He has been caught in underwater lava avalanches, been harassed by Chinese soldiers on the Great Wall, and charged by a bull elephant in Botswana. But never in those 13 years was he treated with such disrespect, both publicly and privately, as during the one year he was an official member of HCCAC.
Keith resigned from HCCAC a year ago, and attempts to belittle Keith’s efforts in order to deflect criticism of HCCAC failures and misrepresentations are pathetic.
Speaking of misrepresentations, I took Mr. Williams’ advice [Letters, Harvard Press, Feb. 19] and “fact-checked” his declaration that Groton Public Access is funded by the town’s budget and “no funding is received from Charter.” This is absolutely false. On www.thegrotonchannel.com it says: “The Groton Channel is funded entirely by the town’s franchise agreement with Charter.” I contacted their paid program director and learned that they receive 4.25 percent of Charter’s gross annual revenues in Groton. (As lead negotiator for the 10-year Harvard contract, Williams could have gotten the same deal. Ignoring Keith’s advice to the contrary, Williams settled in 2005 for a flat rate of $20,000 per year plus a 3 percent adjustment for inflation.)
What other falsehoods have been presented as the truth?
Mary H. Vesenka Turner
Littleton County Road
