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Interlocal agreement 2012 · carried on channel 99
The access channel: Mishawaka's local-origination production runs through Michiana Access TV, the public, educational and governmental access channel carried at channel 99 on the area's cable systems. The channel was organized under an interlocal agreement of 2012 among the City of South Bend, the City of Mishawaka and St. Joseph County — adopted on South Bend's side by Common Council Resolution 4152-12, passed 13 February 2012 — under which the public broadcaster WNIT operates and manages the channel for the three partners. The service cost was put at $85,000 a year, shared; contemporary reporting in Current (September 2012) gave the five-year authorizations as $155,000 from the county, $280,000 from South Bend and $75,000 from Mishawaka, and anticipated an October 2012 launch, with WNIT's vice president of production, Angel Hernandez, setting the service up. The channel carries Mishawaka's city council meetings and takes public-access productions from residents of the partner communities without charge, and WNIT's later local-content reporting confirms it still managed the channel for the county and both cities into the 2020s.
The production seat, however, is not Mishawaka's. Michiana Access TV is produced from WNIT's Center for Public Media at 300 West Jefferson Boulevard in South Bend — the building WSBT vacated for Mishawaka in 2008. Mishawaka's share in the access channel is a funding and governance share: the city's meetings are produced, and its residents may produce, but the cameras, control room and staff stand across the river in the old broadcast plant. It is printed here at exactly that strength, as the cable side of this section's frame finding. One earlier crossing is worth its line: WNIT's own published history places the station's offices in Mishawaka's 100 Center complex during the 1980s, before its Elkhart years — a tenancy of offices, not studios, and printed at that size.
Sources
- South Bend Common Council Resolution 4152-12, passed 13 February 2012 — the interlocal agreement among South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County; WNIT to operate and manage the access channel; services cost $85,000 a year, shared.
- Current, September 2012 — five-year authorizations: St. Joseph County $155,000, South Bend $280,000, Mishawaka $75,000; October 2012 launch anticipated; WNIT's Angel Hernandez setting up the service.
- WNIT local content report, FY2021 — the station still managing the access channel for the county and both cities; the channel carrying Mishawaka council meetings and resident-produced public access at no charge.
- WNIT published history — station offices in Mishawaka's 100 Center complex in the 1980s.