"The mayor is not going to give up on this," Crane says. "Should we spend a million dollars on a cable channel or cops and health in the city? The mayor has vowed for a safer, healthier city. He ran on that platform and said it again in his inauguration.... We'd love to be able to keep [the channel].... This solely has to do with priorities."
Under his proposal, the city will still be able to stream city meetings online.
Burleigh, however, says there are other options. "Lewis is saying we need to...look at what some of the potential funding alternatives are...instead of going after this one department."
He says, "Can we fill the gaps through other means?"
"We think that the mayor is just rushing the decision without doing his due diligence," he adds.
Burleigh argues that the math does not add up -- and Reed's statement says that a proposed police restructuring could save these jobs yet "the Mayor still seems determined to close the Communications Department.
Meanwhile, Richard Callow, who managed Slay's reelection campaign, tweeted this in response to our tweet about the Reed press release:
@samtlevin I suspect some 2015 challenger is framing that release. Pretty hard to defend a $900,000 a year cable bill (esp. without PPV).
— Richard Callow (@publiceyestl) April 23, 2013
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