Cable Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

call this meeting of the cable advisory committee uh to order. Um it's been a few months since we've met, so we're going to kind of just rejigger and reorient ourselves. Um first agenda item is public input. Uh there's nobody in attendance besides the committee and nobody on Zoom, but I think uh Mr. Hatser had some public input he wanted to cover.

Um, I just recently stumbled back into Verizon's web area. I guess you can they have a thing that lets you check your uh internet speed and things like that. And I got in there and confronted with an ad. Hey, you can save a bunch of money. Um, you're paying $286 now and you can pay 190. Um, and keep everything the same. Uh, I think those are the numbers. I'm close to the numbers. Maybe it's 260. Um, oh uh your your um commitment is expired. You just have to do an two-year commitment. I went in went all around couldn't figure I couldn't verify how much I was going to get what I a the details so I went on to the the chat chat with a live person I got a live person and I told her you know what do I get do I get the same what's the difference um you send numbers that don't help or or whatnot Um, [snorts] and you know, is there anything different? She sends stuff that has names of half a dozen 60 services. No idea what they're talking about. Uh, how that compares. [snorts] Well, you know, it says here 260 and then 190, but that's not the number you just sent me for uh this this news. It's $220 or something like that. um sends me numbers from, you know, the system says this. Um it's I think that it it boils down to deceptive marketing. Uh and I've had the same problem with it before uh going back years. So I wanted to put on the

record an unhappy customer relative to their business practices. We had no complaints here. So thank you. I happen I happen to be aware of most of this as it so happens having heard one or two before. Yeah, I I've experienced things like that. I've just tolerated it and just decided we have to deal with it later. Yeah, but we have a job. Yeah. To

not that we can when it comes to renewal time, you can at least we used to be able to say um we're not happy about this. Um and uh you know what are you going to do? Are you certain that was a a real person in the chat? I have no idea. It was um probably it wasn't smart enough for AR. [laughter] Okay.

Do you have any other further comments on this? Because I think you had two, right? And then the other one was um the municipal fiber grants. Oh. Um, a thing just came by me um that uh showed that the state is coming along with some new opportunities for grants for municipal fiber projects. And I I passed it on to both you and to Fiona because Fiona is the one that tracks down all these grants and does things and she's the one who really put it together to do the FiOS in the park. Um there may you know people should be aware that hey there's an opportunity there isn't a lot of money running around to to have initiate things and uh so there it is there is that possibility I don't remember whether we got the last piece of the fiber in the park um up at north

um They're supposed to have covered the whole whatever you call it common. But then there's the playgroundish area behind the church, you know, a block over uh behind there. And uh I can't remember I can't remember the name of it, but but that was going to be a little harder to cover. And uh was a was another, you know, some more equipment and cable and whatnot. And the last I heard they weren't that they were thinking they were not going to do that now. And if that turns out to be true, then um maybe this could help.

Yeah. And I I sent that back to Fiona asked the same question you're asking and um I should send it back this afternoon. I hope I don't know. Well, that was that was a good catch. Great job getting it on everybody's radar. never can get enough grants. So that's that was great. Um does anybody else have any other public comments? Okay. Um so the first agenda item is to continue reviewing neighbor uh neighboring communities licensing agreements. Um I'm going to tee that up to you of course and you you would kind of spearheaded that with all of your reports, but I understand if uh

I'm just trying to piece it all together is what it was. a lot of a lot of things. Uh I think at one point we talked about we were kind of work together to try to fix one issues with the Milbury uh Milford Milford. Yeah. I got about [clears throat] halfway through. I'll finish that and send it to you. Oh, nice. Um where it was had to be uh put together. Um but um I I still have the files that I had from the A4. I didn't put those together but uh or bring them here. But um yeah, I mean clearly that's something we have to get back on track on. I mean it's I think we had too large of a gap between uh was it September?

Um so our last meeting was September but we didn't get a quorum. Um so that was that was difficult and then yeah so then it was a lot of holidays and life was happening. So uh 2026 here we are. Yeah. Um, and that's fine to just kind of basically just get on this could just be like a getting back on track meeting and then I'm okay with that and then we can just kind of start chugging along again. It's going to be a lively winter and spring. Politically something going on. I haven't you you haven't I'm completely I thought I saw you about 10 times today on Facebook. Not me. Did

there is something else that that I thought about that's last year's minutes? No. Oh, yes. Our annual report. We still have in a few days. Yes, we do. In a few days. Isn't it due um before sometime before the end of January? Is it supposed to be for the different uh committees, I guess, or Yeah, for for the you know, but we're advisory committee. Well, it doesn't matter. I think I think we get to I think we're supposed to put out a report even though we don't get reports on what's going on other than what we do in our meetings. I don't think it hurts to submit one. I think it was awesome of you to have that on your radar and to bring a draft. I think Well, that was from before.

Yeah. Yeah. Um that's 2024, right? Um you know, like cuz some of these things like we're not going to talk about a desk, right? No, mention that word in 2025. Uh, but but I I I like where your head's at and um I think we should definitely try to put something together for Cindy. And I'll reach out to Cindy tomorrow to ask her what our drop deadline is and uh you know see if we can [snorts] get a little time and if we have to meet earlier in February um I don't know what everybody's schedules like. We can talk about that later, but to to accommodate Cindy to to to get this in. I think that that's that's an important

if the committee has to approve the report, you could have at any time a uh quick Zoom Yep. to do that. Um anytime that you Yeah. get three of us to Yep. So I'll So I'll make sure I reach out to Cindy tomorrow, find out when that is. Um do you want to write this or would you like me to write something to send out? Well, I think for the most part the last time when I wrote it all up, which was so many pages, do you like No, no, no. Starting this up to you, you you you did a lot of major editing. I will take it on. I love that. I just didn't want to steal anything. Um, so I think it's going to be much a much shorter report for

it. Probably be a single pager considering how much we've covered this year. We will want those to report now, right? We can report that our status has been changed and our you know our role has been changed. That was in this report here. This is calendar year isn't it? Yes. I believe it's calendar year. Um so our status changed during the calendar year. You can hang on to that. Yeah. That's that's maybe the biggest item there. Yep.

Well, and then you know what our refocus was and how we've been looking at contracts. We I mean we've been we've been doing stuff so it'll it'll be uh it'll be nice to um let people know that we're doing things. Okay. That was an excellent catch and thank you very much. Um I'd been thinking about that but I I've been tad busy too. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Okay. Um, so as far as our current license agreements and I mean do we just want to acknowledge that in spend a gap and and we'll or do we do we have anything to add to that tonight or do we want to where where's everybody set up for that next agenda item?

Well, I I think that um um uh probably by by this weekend um I'll I'll put together the necessary information. I'll I'll send out copies to to you guys and so you can uh have a chance to look and see what what I have for for those. I mean, I don't see any harm in distributing the like the the summaries and comparisons uh between them. Yep. Just don't add any commentary to it. You can send us materials, but not your thoughts, and then that's totally fine. Well, but they're not my thoughts. They're right. Yep. Recommend sending at BCC. The addresses are BCC before Christ.

Note before that. No, that's for before current after Sunday. Blind carbon copy. [clears throat] I think it's blind. Blind. It's blind copy. Uh blind carbon copy. Yeah. BCC. So that when I click reply, it doesn't go to everybody with whatever I'm saying. I It only goes to whoever sent it. Very good. Yep. Yeah. [snorts] Um, it's surprising how often I suggest, you know, every body I've ever on, I've suggested that or had to suggest it. Oh, yeah. You know, because of the open meeting. Yeah. You want to

steer clear of that? Okay. So, you're you're sending out both the the neighboring communities and do you have input on our current ones or is is there any more further to drill down on our current ones? They were um I think uh was it four or five towns, but that's the neighboring one, but the next agenda items are our our specific ones. Is there anything people want to discuss about our specific ones or are we kind of solid on those right now? Well, uh ours were being compared to those other ones. Okay. Um it wasn't just a matter of summarizing each town's uh license. It was summarizing and comparing yep

the differences and and from the first goaround when we did that with um uh can't remember which town it was but point was we did it with a few I think it was Westboro I think it was Milbury and Westboro maybe um that uh you could literally see the differences and how Grafton measured up against the others. Yeah. And the and the summary at the end. So all of that worked out very well and it was based on that that we want to expand it to be more towns and that was the Okay, that was good sense. I'm just asking cuz I'll craft the agenda differently where we don't need a standing agenda item to discuss our licenses because I think that kind of um it threw me for a little like I don't it's encompassed in A. Exactly. Yep.

Because of how we've structured A. Yep. Okay. Um, C, we've kind of covered, but we'll we'll circle back in case there's any charter complaints or if you guys have you guys received any complaints or heard any besides the Verizon complaint besides tonight. Um, I think we've kind of already touched on meeting frequency that, you know, 6 months or whatever has been not enough. That's too far apart. [laughter] So, we'll we'll definitely be scheduling a meeting in February. was a good like touch base to to you know reorganize of where we are, what our what our goals are and then um

I I think one thing that I would like to see if we can uh get is the uh number of subscribers. Okay. Uh that's easier what the current count is for um for uh uh Spectrum and uh the other for best in well unless something's changed

since since uh 84. Um the reason well it might have um the best they don't have to tell anybody. Okay, but they do have to give us 50 cents per subscriber per year. So, you can go look at the last 50 cents per subscriber payment and multiply it out and you'll find Verizon has 2/3 and um Spectrum has one/3 and the numbers have shrunk a bit. Yeah, it'd be nice to see and that's about, you know,

about 10%. I'll yeah I'm I'm looking to see what the trend is and well the trend is drifting a little down on subscribers. I don't know what the we might be able to even tell revenue uh in some of the reports we get but yeah we get a report that calculates out our 5%. Mhm. And uh in it is the numbers you know it's 5% of numbers. So you get the number on the re the the revenue the part of their revenue that is subject to uh the the cable license. Okay.

Right. Um related to meeting frequency. Uh Amy Barry has emailed us twice now asking about missing minutes. Um we should someone should probably respond to her. Yeah [laughter] I did. I took care of it all. Oh god. So they were all cleared up I think except for our most recent meeting. So whatever because we had done them um so I either had them and they just weren't getting submitted to her and I confirmed I went back and watched all of our meetings. I watched where we voted. I you know I did all that. Um so we just got to make sure when we vote on them that we're we're sending them over. Were Were you doing If you weren't I'll start doing it but I I thought you were sending them to her after we voted. Um Miss

that was that was what I was Okay. Yep. And so now they were Yep. In all my years, I never submitted minutes. I always had whoever was doing the minutes. Was that that that was um Mark Mark for almost all. But but if that's changing because it's if you got other stuff going on, if you want to do it differently, if you want me to submit them, I don't I don't mind doing that either. Whatever you're comfortable with doing. The the thing is is that the copies that I released in the meetings and so forth say draft on them. Uh, and they're um there isn't an actual word version of it. It's all only as a PDF. I have, of course, all of the the word versions of them.

Yeah. Um, I think you can submit a PDF, can't you? Oh, yes, sure. Yes. Right. And I strongly recommend circulating things as PDFs. They are not Word documents partly because I use a Mac and Word is hard to come by on a Mac, but I know I I have a real aversion to [laughter] to Word. But but no, the idea is PDFs are like print. Uh you know, they're they're what they are.

You your your your word document comes around and all of a sudden it says something a little different as it goes around. You know, every version that I've written has been in uh word dot, you know, doc. Yeah. It's still which is back to the the long time ago, you know, 2008, something like that. So, it's it's not it's not the newer versions of it. It's the older style. So, they're they're backwards compatible with just about everything. But but it's still editable. Oh, it is. And it's still Word. And uh it is but what I'm saying Microsoft

but what I'm saying is that um when I released them all they've all been PDFs and uh whether they're drafts or don't say draft on them but what I'm saying is that there should be something other than myself having that archive of the originals I would think. So the only set of minutes remaining in 2025 that we need to do is August. I've got that. And that's and you've already written them. Yeah. Okay. Well, no. Well, yeah. I'm I'm pretty certain that I have them, but I'll uh I don't doubt that you do. Um so, let's just let's just push those back out again so we all have an opportunity to read them. We'll vote them on at next meeting and then we're we're good. Um

and then we just have to submit something for the September 10th saying that there was no quorum and that that's our minutes. Um so that because we didn't technically cancel, but there the meeting was held, people showed up, there was no quorum. Um, so, so that covers that for those two two dates. Um, perfect. And then, you know, obviously tonight's meeting. So, that'll get us completely all on Amy's good list again because that's where I want to stay. Yeah, I wanted to make sure that we weren't ignoring her.

No, we we as Sorry, I should have probably pushed that out to you guys. But yeah, I jumped all over that and and took care of that. Um, so, yep. So, that's perfect. And then, well, I need to look at the agenda again. So, as far as meeting dates in February, uh I'm going to tee it off a course and first what what are preferred dates for you? Uh just let me see. um is um I'm I'm just looking at the u the first week, second week is pretty very very clear. When you get to the third week,

you have President's Day on the 16th. Um you got Chinese New Year on the 17th, you've got Ash Wednesday on the 18th. It's a very complicated week. Yeah. Um uh and then you get to the last week of February. Um that that's fine. Okay. How about the 8? The 18th is a month from today. So the 18th is National Wednesday. Uh and is that a holiday? Yes. For kind of in Catholics it is. H for [clears throat] Catholics it is. Is it a is it a legal holiday? No. No. Well, so that I'm pretty sure that doesn't um impact our

it doesn't disqualify it as a meeting day and it doesn't affect me and I know that I have a meeting with state people called by a state agency on when that afternoon. Okay. Um I I'm CMRPC's representative to the CMMPO which is state highway and whatnot. Uh and we just verified that date. So just like today,

so I I would personally lean towards uh the 4th or the 11th for the sole purpose of the annual report. I'm assuming Cindy's going to want that maybe sooner than later. And if we're going to meet, I'd rather not meet twice to do a quick approval on that. I'd like to just maybe do it all in one meeting. Um the 11th feels good to me and hopefully we can squeak it out if I, you know, tell her we can get it to her by the 12th. But uh again, this is all going to really I have the IT committee on the 11th at 7:00. Although actually

I I'm not it's been moving around so I have it here actually twice right now. I have it on the 4th and the 11th. Well, pick one. Well, I don't I don't get to pick. Okay. Dave does. Um so I don't know. Um but she I'd be fine with the fourth. Yeah, I'm fine with either. But if he's got both Dave's books, let's see. You're talking Dave Robbins, right?

Right. We met on the 14th of this month, you know, the second Tuesday of this month. Um, those meetings are a little fluid also because we really need either Evan or William. And they seem to have some other stuff they're busy with. Don't. No, no, no. Don't tell me anything. Um,

I just I just shot Dave a message asking really nice IT meetings. If if he ins me, you know, reasonably quick, we should be able to figure it out. Um, but the fourth and 11 work good for you. How about How about you, Megan? Which do we Wednesdays are still pretty good for everybody? I like a Wednesday. Wednesdays are nice. Okay, fourth and 11 good for you. Great. Um, so we'll just give Dave brief moment here.

What if you had to pick one? Do they have a quorum? If you had to bail on it and come to us instead need to I'm just as a rule. I don't miss meetings. It's fair. I haven't missed a planning board meeting in my whole time since 91. I haven't missed a cable committee meeting since ' 84.4. How did I know that? How did I know that? That that you know cuz I and you have the ability to remember things.

It's dangerous. I got to make it. Who is here? Let's see. Okay. Um, well, he hasn't written back, but we all agree that the 4th and the 11th is open as long as it doesn't conflict with it. Once I find out when it is meeting, I will book the alternative date and throw and throw an email out.

Perfect. Did I have this recollection I don't know but January 28th was some other year but it's that's generally like the last week of January is the nominal has typically been the nominal filing date. Now I'll say that there's been flexibility when oh for the annual reports for the annual report but um I don't now if all we have to do is say I send the report we could do that separate you know just a separate five minute zoom meeting

totally agree totally agree if we have to do that that's what we'll do just trying to hopefully avoid that then then you'd have less pressure to be earlier here in the month and you could do what you want more flexibly in February to have an actual, you know, real meeting. Yep. Personally, I'd like to avoid the 18th just that's personally how I would like to do that. And then and then now we're looking at over a month and we're talking about not meeting so far apart. So the two the fourth and the 11th were kind of my sweet spots to begin with just to get us back on track. No,

I' I've got the 12th which is the second to the second Thursday of the month. I generally Well, except for once a quarter I can the second Thursday of the month. For what committee? H which committee is that going to be? No, it it an open

I don't have one an open 12. I have uh oh actually the fifth is also no the every third Thursday of the month is a quarterly meeting of CMRPC and the generally the last Thursday of the month is both executive committee and transportation committee for CMRPC. So yeah, Thursdays I look at you know be careful on that. Okay, that makes sense. I Yeah, a lot of committees [clears throat] meet on Thursday. Of course, you can use survey monkey tool. I don't know whether you have access to it, but but CMRPC uses that a lot.

Yeah, you know, and say you send out, you know, here here are here are the dates we're thinking about. Check off if you can. Don't you know? Yeah, you you must have done that. Yeah, I think we just did that in person though. I think we're we're pretty clear on what's going to work. So, okay. Um, if nobody has anything else to add um for any of those agenda items, if I missed anything, do you want to move we adjourn? I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All right. Motion made seconded. All those in favor? I Right. Declare the motion carried. Thank you everybody.