Fort Bragg City Council Candidates Forum Wednesday October 5th 2016
Wednesday October 5th on Mendocino TV from 6pm to 7:30pm
We apologize to our audience and the edited video is now up. Rex Gressett represented himself as a legitimate candidate several hours previous to this forum. Due to his admission that he is not a legitimate candidate for office, we at Mendocino TV feel that, in an effort to be fair to the other candidates we needed to edit Rex Gressett from our candidates forum, which is now done. The following clip illustrates the issue and there is further explanation below the video, followed by the edited version.
Sincerely, Mendocino TV
Rex Denounces His Candidacy Again from Terrence Vaughn on Vimeo.
As a follow up to the removal of Rex Gressett from our City Council Forum I feel an explanation is necessary. Rex has gone howling to the moon over the ill treatment he has undergone. This lunatic forgets that he has written to the newspapers to denounce his candidacy twice previous to our Forum last Wednesday. He is having problems establishing tenancy cause this dog has fleas.
Meanwhile he ignores one of the worst environmental disasters to visit the Noyo Harbor. While his scow is sitting on the floor of the river leaking pollutants, squatting outside of City Limits, Rex thinks that pretending to live in the city gives him some right to run a campaign of threats and insults to gratify his dream of being a citizen journalist while being egged on by others who want to hide behind his pretensions of relevance.
Rex licks the hands of the men on the City Council while he barks at every woman on the City’s Staff as if they are paid to endure his vile insults and lies, hiding his misogynistic attitude behind a veil of Free Speech and his “Constitutional right to be an assh*le.”
The lack of civility in this years election process has got to stop. Rex stepped over several boundaries.
- Rex is a loquacious storyteller who never quite makes a point, isn’t accurate and shows a complete lack of understanding how government gets funded..
- We edited out 30 minutes of irrelevant commentary that could have been better spent getting to the backlog of questions on Marianne’s list. 1/3 of the total show was wasted on his chatter. How rude to the rest of us. Especially to our audience, we are sorry. He denied that he wasn’t really running, ranted to his supporters and made great threats so, at a very short notice, Marianne agreed to allow him on the show with several conditions.
- Rex’s thinly veiled insults directed at Scott Menzies and his continuous fawning over Bernie & Will was inappropriate as we attempted to create a fair atmosphere for ALL of the candidates. Using our forum to canvas for another candidate is disingenuous at best, may be outright fraudulent but is certainly rude.
- Our responsibility to a journalistic ethos tells us that when we discover we are being used to spread a fraud and we discover that the information given to us is fraudulent, I can choose to edit that fraudulent statement from our forum. A time consuming task but I’m happy with the results
how about being fair to the public and posting both the edited and original forums… did the city threaten you guys to edit out rex?? did anybody fact check him as a candidate?? all i have heard is rex spoke very well so unless he was a maniac; i would like to suggest you not edit him out. your explanation says he was legit, then said he was not legit, but in “not running” did he unfile some papers with the city or just proclaim in the forum that he was not running?? how would we know if your going to CENSOR the forum?!!? come on MTV!! post it in FULL!!!
I agree with having the full discussion. It’s not for MTV to unilaterally eliminate the input of one individual. It seems spiteful and shortsighted to me.
It is not spiteful or shortsighted at all. Rex did some very serious things, like lying about his candidacy. Wasting all of our time on irrelevant nonsense. Committing election fraud. He was given a reprieve by Marianne McGee if he stopped calling people names and making statements that we know for a fact are not accurate. You may have the time to watch the extra 1/2 hour of nonsense but most viewers of internet content only want to watch relevant content and nothing else. Did you watch the forum? He has already renounced his candidacy 2 more times.
Your allegations are not facts. They are just speculative (and self-serving) opinions.
In your censoring Rex, and in my listening to the redacted video, you threw out too much wheat with the chaff.
Rex has the right to do what he wants and use his candidacy in any way he sees fit. You are charged as no government official in any capacity. Prior restraints are inappropriate.
You have fallen short of the mandate a media channel should strive to achieve. Post hoc imposition of rules is inappropriate.
I think the better alternative would be to issue a disclaimer and ensure that all discourse is published. You are putting your thumb on the scales for the free marketplace of ideas.
An editted version is just fine so long as it is accompanied with the context of the available full version. Give Rex all the rope he needs. I think we both know what will happen. Thanks.
You are investing too much thought and effort in this matter. I’ve produced 5 shows since the CC forum. Old video is deleted never to return. You seem to be working under the assumption that I work under some sort of public trust. I’m a self financed entity with no obligations to anyone but my advertisers.
Since Rex IS ON THE BALLOT he is a “legitimate” candidate – and he had a lot to say last night. This is censorship at its worst. WTF ?(comment by paul mccarthy of msp posted on fort bragg wellness page)
Nope, Not a legitimate candidate!
Why censor the video? Just add a disclosure stating your view of the situation. Livestream means seeing it for what it is not cutting the parts you wish to cut.
Just show it.
There is always two sides to every story. I did watch the entire “livestream” but missed Rex insulting Scott (could have been at a moment the loud music played over those speaking, even Marianne) I actually thought Rex controlled himself pretty well compared to other times such as Council meetings. Rex does go off quite often but I don’t think that makes him a lunatic anymore than your sparing with Rex makes you a marshmallow as Rex said. The only lack of civility during this election seems to be between you and Rex (and yes, Rex’s outbursts directed toward City Staff). I believe the other 4 candidates have been perfect gentlemen.
holy cow!! did dave turner and linda ruffing pay you to write this extra rip session on rex?!! come on now, rex is listed as a candidate on the city’s weg page and the city paid mendocino tv 50 thousand dollars of the peoples money to not censor anything. notice the league of women voters forum did not cut out the candidate and good for them. if there is an issue that arises over the legality of rex gresset; then take it up with king david and the queen bee or give back our 50 thousand dollars!!! writing this extra long rant about how bad rex is is a one way ticket to being sued for slander!!! it’s the kind of crap you would see on social media, not on a webpage related to a television station that just wiped on candidate out of a forum because why? you have “feelings”?? i think everybody who attends the city meetings need to ask that the city get a refund. no tax paying citizen in city limits would agree to throw 50k at mtv to have political forums censored!!!! do the right thing. you already knew rex was supporting will lee and bernie norvell before you let him in to the forum. you can’t undo this now. your fourth bullet point explains you just cannot handle freedom of speech and that says a lot about what the city paid 50 thousand dollars of the peoples money on!!!
No Joe, I haven’t talked to Dave or Linda in quite a while. What do you and the Wellness group don’t understand is, I won’t be USED to further your political agendas for free. Buy an ad! I’m sympathetic to some issues and not around others. That is called a free press. As evidenced by the fine forum presented around Measure U.
Mendocino TV has never entered into a contract with the City of Fort Bragg. We have always maintained distinct and separate relationship. The City of Fort Bragg hired me, Terrence Vaughn, personally to build some media equipment to the specifications of a PEG access station. I am administering the station right now until the flux in the county project to consolidate the PEG stations under one County General Services or IT department is finished and the Municipalities make some decisions and a RFP gets issued by the County. Until then they are hiring me on a month by month basis to keep the signal alive.
Mendocino TV has no direct affiliation with the City of Fort Bragg. I derive no benefit from donating Mendocino TV media. Every viewer on Comcast Channel 3 is one less viewer of my web page. The reason you see content from Mendocino TV on channel 3 is because there is nobody else producing content in the community and I need any and everyones content to fill 336 time slots a week.
I know nothing about Rex’s arrangement with Will and Bernie. If I were Will and Bernie I would put as much distance between Rex and them as possible. It taints there candidacy. I am on the fence regarding voting for either of them. If they don’t denounce Rex’s support of them I will perceive of it the same as Trump not disavowing the support of David Duke of the KKK. You can’t have it both ways. A shame since I want to support them. Watch the edited version for a clearer view of their positions.
I would love to get you set up recording your show and playing it on Mendocino TV and Channel 3. Just call me to set it up. Then you can be as uncensored or censored as you want. Send me a MP4 or a link to the embed code. By the way, none of the candidates bought a political ad this year from Mendocino TV and we set up a neutral forum with no advertising at our expense. After we notified Rex via several messaging modes that he wasn’t invited, Rex showed up at the front door of my business making threats and being abusive. I walked him off of the porch and down the stairs to his Vespa, never laying a finger on him. I’m too busy to go read everything Rex says about that encounter but rest assured, no violence or threats of violence were ever made
Rex made wild threats of shutting down the upcoming forum, went to the police to get police protection, complained to the Mayor, all of whom explained to him, “Mendocino TV is a private business>” Marianne McGee was the person to be blamed for letting him attend the Forum against my better judgement. Rex almost got away with it until I heard his last statement while cleaning up the audio miscues. Rex can rant, howl and complain all he wants but there are four public forums where he renounces his candidacy. The AVA, The Advocate News, Mendocino TV Candidates Forum and the LWV Forum. So what is the problem?
well if you are a private business and i respect that; then could you give the people’s money back to the city?? i think most believe you are running a single tv channel with the 50 thousand plus i believe more and that’s the kind of money that buys opinion as some would see it… thanks for letting us know you think rex is not a candidate and that you stand by the censoring of the forum. this opens me up to our broadcast this eveng from 5 to 6pm kn knyo where paul mccarthy will have an hour of one on one forum with rex… i call it “equal time” and if anybody cries foul i will send them to the mendocino tv page for your side of the story…
you have any proof to this?? he was a pretty mild guy for my forum…
Joe, I only write from my experiences. Everything I say, I have sources to back it up or I was there speaking from 1st hand knowledge. As a journalist should.
Are you asking me to prove that Rex stood in my doorway yelling threats of lawsuits and public defamation at me? Or the part when Rex, on video, denounces his own candidacy? Watch the video!
Hi, would you mind please posting an unedited version? I would like to see the event as it happened and decide my own opinions. Thank you!! 🙂
Why would I let an illegitimate candidate use my forum for free to attempt to skew an election. Ask Rex to buy a political ad to express his opinion.
so you will censor curtis out of the forum now right?? why waste your valuable time censoring one candidate that is listed on the city website and not the other??
My time is too valuable and Curtis was at a loss for words throughout the forum, hence no need to edit.
Nope, but thanks for showing an interest.
If you really need to act as a censor, please just bleep out the cuss words and let the public decide for themselves. It is not your role, to not only censor, but further to manipulate the sound and images as you have done. Highly unethical, and you should lose your license if you had one.
Why would I let an illegitimate candidate use my forum for free to attempt to skew an election. Ask Rex to buy a political ad to express his opinion.
so you will censor out curtis now after he has publicle stated he is dropping out?? curtis too has cost you 166 out of your pocket… be fair or put up the original because stating “go watch the other forum” is exactly what people are going to start doing…
More nonsense Joe. Are you trying to become a Rush Limbaugh of the Mendocino Coast where you make up facts from old incomplete data. Be careful, you may end up like Rex, baying at the moon with nothing to say!
No License to revoke. No cuss words. Watch it edited. It makes for a good forum. It is exactly my role to censor and edit any way I see fit. I am the producer, director and owner of the show.
I am tired of people from out of the City attempting to affect what happens within the City. Move into town if they want to have a say. Rex lives in the Harbor on a derelict scow tied up to pier, squatting.
are you saying you have taken no money from the city??
What I’m saying is that I performed a service to the city for a fee as an independent contractor. My business, Mendocino TV occasionally supplies video content to Channel 3, This is only done when requested. Other than that, Mendocino TV is a direct competitor with Channel 3’s programming. Somehow you have some axe to grind over charging money for services rendered. If you wanted to perform the service of building a TV station for Comcast subscribers you should have bid on it. We didn’t bid on it. The City of Fort Bragg pleaded to us to perform the task over the course of several months. We declined because I have my own business to grow. When they offered enough money to justify putting my business on hold, I accepted the task. The City and I have been jointly restoring what others destroyed and they paid me for the job. What is your issue with that? You can understand how Leaventhal & Schlosser can restore Town Hall for the city yet not be affiliated, right? Fort Bragg has contracts with many entities. Enough with your misinformation, hints and innuendos. Invite me onto your show if you want to talk about it.
According to Terry: Rex licks the hands of the men on the City Council while he barks at every woman on the City’s Staff as if they are paid to endure his vile insults and lies, hiding his misogynistic attitude behind a veil of Free Speech and his “Constitutional right to be an assh*le.”
Well you can watch him lick the hand of the men by clicking this link and fast forward to 32 minutes into the video
http://cityfortbragg.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=140
According to Terry: The lack of civility in this year’s election process has got to stop. Rex stepped over several boundaries.
I think the campaigns have been civil and the lack of civility came about with this issue of Rex and Terry. Terry showed an equal amount of lack of civility as Rex did. I believe the other candidates have behaved like gentlemen.
According to Terry: How rude to the rest of us.
I agree, it is very rude to the rest of us to have YOU decide what we see and hear.
According to Terry: Meanwhile he ignores one of the worst environmental disasters to visit the Noyo Harbor. While his scow is sitting on the floor of the river leaking pollutants, squatting outside of City Limits.
I hope you have evidence of this because if you don’t I would say at the very least you owe Rex an apology for the accusations you made. If it is true than maybe you should have made it known so something could be done about it.
Terry says: This lunatic
Did you say this because he called you a marshmallow?
Rude? Really? Read your own comments to see rude. Some of these are pretty serious accusations, I hope you have the evidence to back it up. You could do a disclaimer without the insults.
I am quite confidant in those accusations. I have had people volunteer to attest that he still lives on his boat. You and other Rex supporters may want to stop supporting Rex. It reflects on your judgement. Sending a wrecking ball into the process may express your feelings but I want to see some good governance come from this election. Everyone knows Rex is lying so why don’t we stop the charade by pretending he has standing as a candidate. He is breaking the LAW! There is a SF supervisor who spent time in jail for not living in his district. You are just harming your credibility and the credibility of the other candidates he professes to support.
I have never supported Rex running for Council so you are wrong on that point. I said it many times and have not been quiet about it.
Some of your other facts may be true (as you see it) but accusing me of supporting Rex is harming your credibility because you do have the facts wrong on that one. I have also stated he is an entertainer not a politician. I have also stated that his facts are not always correct. I do not and have not supported him as a candidate for Council. If saying those things is harming my credibility as you say…so be it.
Thank you for clarifying your position Judy. I will take note, yet I wonder why the objection to the editing. Like you said, Rex can be quite entertaining but when he is spending my money and time based on an outright lie, I need to draw the line. If I had the time I would love to argue the fine points of editing and blog posting. Rest assured that most everything you watch on the internet and 100% on Television is edited. I want to reiterate to the anti-censorship group, watch the LWV forum if you want an unedited forum. Rex again renounces his candidacy after using them for his forum. I know that certain members had been highly offended to find out Rex isn’t a resident of Ft Bragg. We have to draw a line in the sand to that behavior when it cost us money, time and degrades the quality of the forum. I feel as if Rex stole from me personally just as if he reached into my wallet and removed $166, (1/3 the average cost, $500, to produce a forum or 30 minutes of a 90 minute production)
Is there anything unreasonable about that, since I pay all of the production expenses from my pocket?
According to Terry: How rude to the rest of us.
I agree, it is very rude to the rest of us to have YOU decide what we see and hear.
As you heard at the end of the show, Marianne had many more questions to ask but ran out of time, so yeah, how absolutely rude to waste 1/3 of the time allotted to us and the legitimate candidates!
According to Terry: Meanwhile he ignores one of the worst environmental disasters to visit the Noyo Harbor. While his scow is sitting on the floor of the river leaking pollutants, squatting outside of City Limits.
I hope you have evidence of this because if you don’t I would say at the very least you owe Rex an apology for the accusations you made. If it is true than maybe you should have made it known so something could be done about it.
The Harbor Commission estimates it will cost $75,000 to move his boat without it breaking up. It is now a navigation hazard They are working on it
Terry says: This lunatic
Did you say this because he called you a marshmallow?
Huh?
Really!! Is there anything he says that makes sense? He is good for stringing lots of fine words together but, if you have any inside knowledge of these subjects one gets the impression that he is arguing to himself with no real information coming from his mouth. Half of the political positions he says come from half truths and tidbits of conversations where he distorts things discarding any attempt at meaningful dialogue, using long words and government terms to string together a barrage of insults at our City Staff at the next Council meeting.
Egging Rex on to express things you may not want to be associated with, is a cowards way to express oneself.
After watching Rex this past year and see his behavior out of control, I must admit…you made a good decision here.
Announcement from Curtis Bruchler:
Important to my friends and family in Fort Bragg! Please forgive me but for the good of Fort Bragg I have decided to withdraw from the Fort Bragg City Council race. I am going to be voting for and supporting Will Lee and Bernie Norvell. I spoke with them today and they encouraged me to stay in. I explained to them that I am not quitting or giving up, it is my decision and no one else’s and I don’t want to split votes. Will and Bernie are the 2 best equipped guys for City Council. I encourage all my family and friends to do the same. I’ll be talking to the paper tomorrow. Thank you for understanding and go Lee and Norvell!//// so get back to the chopping block mtv!!! you have more “censoring” to do right?? i mean you can’t just pick one guy to censor because you “feel like it” right?? rex announced the backing of will and bernie as curtis has now done the same in public!!! chop chop on the censorship block!!!!
I did not censor the forum because “I felt like it”, so, please, stop repeating that nonsense . If you had quit before the forum, like Rex did, you wouldn’t have been invited, like Rex. But you were a legitimate candidate when we had our forum. You seem to misunderstand what went down before and after the Forum. The editing was performed because Rex was wasting all of our time when he wasn’t a candidate. Let there be no mistake about the events that Rex likes to revise. The editing was explained on the web site where the forum aired. If the explanation is unclear, please give me a call at 707-964-0101. You were not performing election fraud as Mr. Gressett was. We know he doesn’t live in the City, he renounced his candidacy and he was committing FRAUD in his attempt to affect the City Election.