Tune in to Marysville’s news on cable station

Published 10:48 pm Thursday, February 21, 2008

MARYSVILLE — Anyone who wants to check the schedule for yard-waste pickup, to find out where to go to pay their traffic ticket, or know what’s going on at the next Marysville City Council meeting doesn’t have to call the city, or even go to its Web site.

If they have cable TV, they can just flip on the tube.

Marysville has its own television station, TV21. The station is available to anyone who lives roughly within the city limits and who has Comcast cable.

While much of the programming consists of still frames of information such as hours of the city golf course — from nonprofit groups as well as the city — it also includes broadcasts of interviews, meetings and other events.

Mayor Dennis Kendall’s state of the city speech last month was broadcast several times, as was a state of the tribes message from Tulalip tribal chairman Mel Sheldon Jr. Candidates’ forums, high school students’ interviews with city officials and others, and fundraisers and meetings by the chamber of commerce, service clubs and churches are among the other programming.

The production is not always slick. “We’ve had big displays on tripods fall over” on the air, city spokesman Doug Buell said. But it works. Plus, the city has budgeted $8,000 this year to upgrade the system, he said.

Currently, Buell sets the timer on a VCR to play tapes of events at certain times, then has to pop the tapes out and replace them later. The plan is to convert to a more compact, digital MPEG system that allows programming to be preset without any manual adjustment.

“It’s just having enough resources and technology available to make it happen,” Buell said.

The city has leeway to show any tasteful, not-for-profit messages and programming, Buell said. Information may be entered directly on the city’s Web site.

“We’re always looking for content,” Buell said.

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.