2017 CMCM Board Election - Greg Brockbank Statement

2017 Statement for Greg Brockbank seeking CMCM Member Board position:

1) On which Board committee/s would you be interested in serving:
Outreach/Fundraising, Board Development/Governance

2) Name any Boards or Advisory groups on which you have served in the past:
See attached public service record

3) Name any organizations with which you are affiliated:
See attached public service record

4) As a board member, what areas below could you contribute expertise:
Legal, Fund Raising/Development, Accountancy, Non-Profit Admin, Strategic Planning, Marketing/Public Relations, Outreach/Community Development

5) Please list other Non-Profit/Board Experience:
See attached public service record

6) Please list other Affiliations (organizations, corporations, foundations)
See attached public service record

7) Why do you want to serve on the CMCM Board of Directors?
I’ve long had a passion for expanding access to our public airwaves to people who want and need to reach out to the public. I'm one of those people. I started performing in school and was a theater major in college. I have since performed in dozens of community theater and musical productions and continue to do so.

I also enjoyed it when, starting 25 years ago, someone producing our local Democratic Party public access TV show stuck a microphone in my hand and had me interview various political candidates and office-holders. In the 90’s, I began to host and produce nearly a dozen series on various topics, mostly political, and became the first Chair of the Media Access Advisory Committee (MAAC) early in the last decade. After that, I was elected to the San Rafael City Council and became an alternate representative to the Marin Telecommunications Agency (MTA), which the MAAC advised. I served on the Board of Conveners to help approve the first set of bylaws and select the first CMCM Board, which sort of succeeded the MAAC, and thus was a co-founder of CMCM.

Since then, I’ve appeared on several shows a year as the Democratic Party guest on a four-decade-old local public access TV show, “Public Advocate" - 12 years and running. I’ve also co-hosted (with Peter B. Collins) “Live Election Night Coverage" for Channel 26 in recent years.

8) What relevant experience do you bring to this board position?
Please see my attached Public Service Record. I was elected to and served 22 years as an elected official on the College of Marin Board of Trustees and the San Rafael City Council, in addition to several dozen other nonprofit, civic, and political boards. It also lists the dozen or so public access TV series I’ve hosted and produced, and been a regular political commentator on a long-running show, 1 “Public Advocate," and recently have co-hosted “Live Election Night Coverage” shows.

9) What is your vision for CMCM and how will you achieve it?
As a member of the Media Access Advisory Committee (MAAC), I toured various media centers and studied their organizational structures, including those in Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and Foothill College. We in Marin long knew that, ultimately, we had to break away from the controlling confines of Comcast and have our own independent media center, but had to wait patiently (and sometimes impatiently) through years of franchise negotiations between Comcast and the MTA, and to convince the MTA of the value of such a media center and board. I probably would have applied to be on the first board, but having just been elected to San Rafael City Council (where I was immediately named as an alternative representative to the MTA Board), it would have been a conflict of interest.

I think I could successfully raise money -- I have an extensive list of friends, supporters, and former donors to my campaigns - as well as bring public awareness of CNICNI to a broader audience. My 32 years as a Marin attorney (all in Marin, and currently in downtown San Rafael), has also given me a wide reach into the community.

I expect that my extensive Board experience will help me make sure the CIVICNI Board is as efficiently run as possible, and my political experience will help CMCM navigate the sometimes choppy political waters of the various city councils we work with (most of whose members I still know well), and my media experience will help me reach out to and help provide access to currently underserved groups and individuals who don’t know about, or don’t know how to access, the services of our wonderful local media center.