As I have mentioned in a previous blog and at the last Selectmen's meeting, the Town has been experiencing problems broadcasting live for its Selectmen's meeting. I have asked Steve Howland, PEG Director for the Town, to provide a summary of the issue for the people to conssider and weigh in on. Please consider this issue and let the Town know of your preferences. It is our desire to accommodate the Town's wishes on this important matter.
Leon Gaumond Jr.
Town Administrator
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Current Situation & Related Facts
Submitted by Steve Howland
PEG Coordinator & Chairman, PEG Board of Directors
Situation:
It is now common knowledge that with the move out of the Mixter building, access cable TV in West Boylston lost our capability to cablecast the Board of Selectmen Meetings live.
Related Facts :
This is due solely to two influences - a limitation at the new location of the town offices where the Select Board meets and related costs to correct that limitation. It is important to understand that the Board of Selectmen is in no way responsible for, nor have they had any influence on, this situation.
Simply stated, the limitation is that the Hartwell Street address is over 4,000 feet away from the closest Charter Communications I-Net drop. The I-Net is different from your usual cable TV drop, in that the I-Net is required to enable us to cablecast TV signals from the Hartwell Street address, out to Charter, then back to the subscribers in West Boylston.
Because the distance is in excess of 4,000 feet, the cost to West Boylston Access Cable TV to run an I-Net cable to the Hartwell Street address would be a one-time, up-front, $15,000 charge.
The PEG Cable TV Board of Directors felt that amount excessive and looked at an alternative internet solution. While sparing you the technical details, that solution would cost West Boylston Access Cable TV approximately $7,000 up-front, and an additional $2,000 each year thereafter (assuming there would be no internet service fee increases). In addition, there were doubts raised by the vendor managing one of the town's networks that the proposed devices would work through existing protective firewalls.
These facts considered, the PEG Cable TV Board of Directors have voted to not cablecast the Board of Selectmen Meetings live for the time being.
Situation :
After a period of flux and of weighing our options, the videotaped replays of the Selectmen's Meetings have settled in to the following schedule.
The Thursday evening immediately following a live meeting shall be the first replay of that meeting, at 7PM. There will be another replay of that same meeting, the following Wednesday evening at 7PM. So there will be 2 opportunities to view each meeting.
Related Facts :
Board of Selectmen's Meetings CANNOT be edited in any way prior to cablecast.
Board of Selectmen's Meetings have NEVER BEEN EDITED in any way prior to cablecast - nor have any live meetings ever been intentionally modified to omit or skip over any content.
Neither the Board of Selectmen (or any member thereof) nor the Town Administrator or the Administrator's Assistant have access to either the videotapes or our editing equipment after a meeting. In addition, none of the above, or anyone else in town government, has ever approached a member of PEG cable TV to perform any modifications of any recorded meetings or requested that any part of any live meeting be somehow omitted or skipped over. Videotapes are brought to the Town Library by PEG personnel, loaded into a playback deck, programmed for playback on the specific date(s) and time(s), and not touched again until after the programmed playbacks have occurred.
In short, baring an unforeseen outage of cable or channel 11 due to a Charter Communications equipment issue, or an equipment issue at our cable casting point of origin (the Town Library), the meeting you watch via tape, is the exact meeting that occurred. In any event, such aforementioned outages or non-transmissions would not be due to any human influence or human intervention. Remember, this is public access cable TV grade equipment, not any where near NBC, CBS, ABC or even FOX grade TV equipment.
Situation :
Currently, the PEG Cable TV Board of Directors is faced with the following 3 choices and is soliciting our viewers for their opinion.
1) Pay Charter Communications $15,000 to run the I-Net cable to and install it into our control room at the Hartwell Street address. This will give us the capability to cablecast the BOS Meetings live from that location. The money is available in our grant account, but using that money for this purpose and not having it available may impact us in other areas later. The PEG Cable TV Board of Directors feels that this is not a wise use of our limited funds, and has voted to not pursue this course of action at this time.
2) Purchase audio & video encoding & decoding equipment for the one-time charge of $5,000 and upgrade the Hartwell Street network so it could handle audio and video transmission. Our current understanding is that the upgrade would not cost us anything, but we would be responsible for the upgraded service fee totaling approx. $2,000 per year (assuming Charter doesn't increase their internet service fee for that level). This possible solution would cost us approx. $7,000 up front, and an additional (approx) $2,000 per year. Over the course of the next 5 years, PEG Cable TV would be paying approx. $15,000 for this solution. A possible caveat is that the vendor managing the network at one of the locations we would need to use had doubts that the decoding equipment would work
properly, given the firewall security currently in place. Because of the cost with this solution and the concern voiced by the network management authority, the PEG Cable TV Board of Directors has voted to not pursue this course of action at this time.
3) Continue to record the meetings and play them back on Channel 11 as previously mentioned. In addition, in the July timeframe, we will be able to put Channel 13 back on line and make that WBGA-TV (West Boylston Government Access), also cable casting from the Town Library. Although this will not give us live Selectmen's Meetings capabilities, it will give us the capability of dedicating a channel to all things government. So the BOS Meetings will not be contending with other (Public Access) programming for time slots and will be able to be re-cablecast numerous times between live meetings. We will also be able to have a bulletin board dedicated to government information running when tapes are not playing. None of this will cost us extra money, as we already have the
necessary equipment and cable drops in place. This is the course of action the PEG Cable TV Board of Directors has voted to pursue at this time.
Related Facts :
Please send us your opinion regarding the aforementioned 3 options regarding BOS Meetings, including any other ideas you might have as possible solutions.
Let us know which option(s) you strongly support and why.
Likewise, feel free to let us know what option(s) you strongly oppose, and why.
The PEG Board of Directors is interested in our viewer's opinions as we move forward.
E-mails have already begun appearing.
You may also send us a letter or postcard at :
Access Cable TV
127 Hartwell Street
Suite 100
West Boylston, MA. 01583
For the PEG Board of Directors,
Steve Howland
Peg Coordinator & Chairman, PEG Board of Directors
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