ECTV students Saadiya Islam, Sarah Briggs, Daryan Barati, Arslans Barati, Shayan Barati and graduate Luca Falco, CAPS staff Gary Roll, Elizabeth Rodeno, ECTV mentor Phil Taggart and Manny Reynoso covering the 2023 high school graduations.
CAPS crew members, including students in the CAPS/ECTV program (El Camino high school program) were very busy the week of June 12 recording and live-streaming graduation ceremonies for Buena, El Camino, Foothill, Pacific, Ventura and VACE. Everyone at CAPS congratulates all of the 2023 graduates.
CAPS is also extremely appreciative of the tremendous support received from the Ventura City Council and members of the community at a recent council meeting. On Monday, June 12 the City Council voted unanimously to continue funding CAPS for the foreseeable future.
CAPS, which stands for Community Access Partners of San Buenaventura, is a non-profit agency that is funded primarily by fees paid by local cable subscribers. The franchise fees are collected by the cable company, passed along to the City, where a portion of the revenue is earmarked specifically for CAPS.
At the City Council meeting CAPS executive director Patrick Davidson’s spoke on behalf of the CAPS board of directors, community members and the CAPS staff requesting continued funding by the city. The presentation included a brief summary of many of CAPS’ services to the community including programming, broadcasting, and streaming Ventura’s public programs on channel 6 which include faith-based programs, talk shows, educational programs and more, recording and live streaming City Council and other City meetings on channel 15 and online, producing dozens of video productions for the city, county and nonprofit agencies, and training members of the public in the use of media tools including cameras, editing programs and more. Among the many informative facts Davidson included in the presentation to the council members was that the CAPS staff members – Donald McConnell, Manny Reynoso, Elizabeth Rodeno, Gary Roll, Phil Taggart and Alex Uvari, individually average more than fifteen years of continuous service to the Ventura community.
CAPS is the educational center for ECTV – the student internship and career pathways program at El Camino high school, where teenagers receive hundreds of hours of hands-on training in the award-winning media and communications program.
CAPS is also the home of CAPS Radio – KPPQ at 104.1fm, where CAPS staff members have trained more than 100 local DJs and produced hundreds of hours of original programming. KPPQ Producer of the month Craig Rosen is the producer of Teen Centric and a longtime member of CAPS Media and KPPQ. He is the Interim Executive Director at the Ventura County Arts Council and manager of the Arts & Youth Justice program which is funded primarily through a grant from the California Arts Council that supports arts instruction for at-risk youth from juvenile hall, foster homes, county reporting centers, and continuation high schools including under-represented youth that are marginalized due to their undocumented status. Teen Centric offers youth a platform for their voices to be heard through discussion and poetry. Craig and his students share their stories and poems and interview other teens, like our county’s first three youth poet laureates, and while several are not system-engaged they all bring a lived-experience that involves some adversity. This program also seeks to celebrate youth and their successes.
He trains the students in the KPPQ studio located at the CAPS Media Center as well as on-location in Juvenile Hall and at other centers. Listeners are impressed with the compelling stories that the youth share. You too can listen to Teen Centric Tuesdays at 8a, Thursdays at 1p, Fridays at 9a and Saturdays at 2p at 104.1fm, on myTuner and on the KPPQ podcast network.
