Cable Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

[Music] Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 meeting of the Grafton Cable Advisory Committee to order. Uh, we have, as far as I know, we have nobody out on the web. That is correct. Zoom. Fifth member is not here just now. Um so we can uh do without roll call but it's time to welcome our new member Megan Bertino. Nailed it. Hi. Um why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and you know I've read a little bit but Sure. Uh so I moved to Grafton. I bought my house about a year ago. Moved in in August of last year after some renovations. Um I work from home. I work for a fiber internet company based out of the Carolas um as their corporate counsel. So, I am a lawyer. I am not this committee's lawyer. Um, the town of Grafton pays its lawyers quite well to advise this committee. I am not looking to step on anyone's toes in that capacity. I I saw fiber internet. I wasn't quite sure what that was saying. Um, I I got us our municipal fiber network uh for back years ago. Uh, we just You know, we have we use money that

we've had to pay a cable, you know, what what's it called? Contract to build a network for the town for the town buildings. Uh but I think what you're talking about is different. So in most of the states that we operate in, we're what's called an overbuilder. So Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, whoever it is already has their network deployed. We build alongside them as a competitor to them providing providing you're not doing television. No, it is it is exclusively internet in we do we are technically a cable company in two states, but we are in the process of that out. Are you in Massachusetts? You cover Massachusetts? No. The furthest north we currently are is on the east coast is Virginia and in the Midwest is Ohio and Illinois. It's funny how they altered the names cable to kind of originally represent coax, but literally cable was any number of things. So cable is multi-channel video. Yeah. And is and is governed by one part of the FCC. No, I was referring to the physical. Oh, yes. Because Yes. So it was it was coax and it was copper. Yeah. Your telephone was copper. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we're actually dealing with a confusion right now with a a town that gave us a cable franchise to to sign and

we have to be like, "No, we don't need that. We operate on cables, but not we are not cable, right? So, it's a data company. It's basically data." Well, everything is data. Voice, video, you name it. Everything. But that's interesting that that you build You know, you build to compete. So, you have to get on all the polls, too. Yes. I This was a big deal with my project. He didn't mean you. So, I I I my reaction was because I don't like going on the polls. Yeah. It's the the poll owners can be challenging to deal with. Uh so, we Uh the company I work for prefers to go underground. Um for like network stability. Yeah. But but do you go down George Hill Road on underground? No. Uh they'll try really hard. Well, maybe a new development properties. [Music] It really depends. It as you come up to bridges, for example, you have to go overhead because you're not going under the water, but the our network the goal is about 80% underground. Yeah. I'd like to, you know, depends on where you are, but uh like around here, the power company says we're never going to put the power underground because it costs too much. putting stuff under well power is harder but putting stuff underground is hard um at least in this kind of some new developments in town have it on the ground. Oh um uh in Grafton for example I think we require

the power and phone um to be um underground. I think that started some years ago. In fact, there's at least one or two subdivisions where the old part is on holes. Oh, okay. And the new part, you know, was came in later as lower. Uh, Colleen, our new member. Hi, Megan. Hello. Good to see you again. Yes. Uh, we're all called to order. Um, have any questions for Megan? Yeah. Oh, no. I I I was there when she was appointed at the select board meeting and she did lovely. I'm very excited. She's part of the team. It's going to be awesome. Good. Okay. This is where we'd have public input if there was any public to provide input. Anybody? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody connected. Not tonight. I don't see anybody. I do look for any input from the from the committee members of public. They're members of the public too. If there's something that apparently not reorganization I don't feel like I'm getting the job done well enough and I don't feel really really focused on what to do what we should be doing. I want to see if it's time to reorganize You noticed that agendas didn't get done quickly and correctly the first try. A lot of that stuff just what do you

think? I'm not I'm not interested. So we don't even have a vice president or chair. vice chair. Vice chair. Yeah, vice chair. Excuse me. Yeah, I know. That's why we need to get organized. I move to appoint you as the for reelection as the chair of the committee. He's he's trying to avoid that. I know he's not going to accept it. Well, I we need to have something. Right. True. But but I just assume that someone else uh would uh do anybody else's interest. So I mean obviously I have no problem chairing a committee but I I'm still one of the newer members so I don't want to step on any toes. You know if nobody wants to do it I don't have a problem. Well, as far as membership goes, there's only Bob and myself are the older people and uh so there's not a lot of pick as far as someone who's not a new member. Yeah. And we know that Bob doesn't want it. How do you feel about it? Well, I I think it's it uh there's a lot of lot of responsibility being the the chairman of the committee itself. The other thing I'll I'll I'll make note of I I share this with you and that is that um I I plan to retire from my job and so forth next next year around the summer or so it's kind of open-ended but I'll be 67 in March. So still a young chicken. Yeah. Well boy does I want a kind of a choice of my retirement. Um, and uh there's a bit of a of a project between my brother and I uh with my parents inherent and so forth and uh things. This is where I was asking some maybe

help from you. Uh there is uh some property up in Waterville, Waterville Valley that uh we're going to be spending some time uh making some adjustments and changes to it and um uh that uh will take a fair amount of time to do all that. And my thought is it would be a nice thing to live up there. Uh the structure itself is the house that exists there through all of the work in it. It would take a lot of renovation to to bring it to what it would be. So, it's really a a cost uh benefit to basically just start from scratch, get it all down, put up new and um and the plan was to possibly live up there so that we would have maybe about 10 years worth of living up there, maybe then come back down to Grafton. Um I have an older of two daughters that is interested in living in in our house that's here. uh she's renting in in Worcester. Uh she doesn't want to come in now. She wants us gone and have the whole place to herself. So, okay. But, um ultimately it it u I think it would work out pretty well. So, I'm thinking and I had to think about what my length of term is because I think it's two years and I think it would expire in being a chair. No, no. Oh, the committee. Yeah. Um, and I think it would expire next next June. I don't think it expires this June. I'll have to double check that. But in any case, I suspect that I would only be remaining on the committee till probably uh mid next year. June 26. Yep. June. Next year. Okay. So, next year. So, basically, I would out I would last until that is my term. So, it's not as

if if I hold the position that I'm going to be in it for any great length of time. And uh although I've been on the committee for a long time and have had some involvement with it, I haven't had much uh the same kind of connection and and u uh familiarity that that Bob has had because he's on so many other committees and he's interacted with more people here and there which I'm not at all. So, I'm just about as green as it comes when it comes to that kind of connection. However, uh you granted I know that you're new to this, but you're not new to the personnel and the people there uh with the municipal center and the and the interaction with it. Y uh my job makes it so that I don't have that luxury of being able to do all of those things that I don't about what your schedule's like, but u it seems that you have greater on your hands to be able to to do that with with crafts and government than I do. So that would be a hindrance to me in terms of being able to make those efforts because it all have to be, you know, after six every night if I were to do anything and the municipal centers only open certain certain nights that are late. So it it it really inhibits what effects that I could have that I could do after work hours to achieve the tasks that are needed as uh committee chairman. Okay. So having said that, so I'll retract the I don't think anybody seconded it. Exactly. I mean it's an honor, but it could be wrong. You have interest. Uh I would like to uh Yeah. Um what's okay to appoint? Let me let me ask you this then uh Colleen u would you be on

the board of select and yes at the same time probably a bunch of other stuff. Yeah that when you get on fingers crossed when you get on the select board you get appointed to a bunch of committees anyway too. You do a lot of committee work so it's very it's it would be no sweat off my back. I see. So, I move to appoint Colleen Roy as the chair of this committee. Second. Yeah. I'm not sure whether I can second. So, um any other nominations? Well, I get we have a treasurous position. No, no, no. We'll do one at a time. Just for this one position. Um all in favor? I I. Any opposed? Over to you. Thank you. All right. All right. So, up next, we're going to need a vice chair. Thank you. Uh, would you be at all interested in being vice chair? Uh, as a a temporary circumstance, I uh, you know, to fill in for when you're not there. I suppose I could in fact do that. Don't worry. I've noticed that being vice chair is not a very heavy duty on most of the stuff I'm on. So, I, you know, I might Oh, would you like I didn't I'm sorry. I thought you were trying to step away. So I I you know it's okay if we get other people in but but like what is it? I'm vice chair of something and I it get it from Oh am I? My my whole duty is every few months I send Dave a message if you announce this one's meeting yet and that's the end of it and I show up at all the meetings you know to keep the quorum going and that's you know it's about it so I could do it

right now I don't think we have a vice chair we don't we didn't we lost our vice chair we didn't reorganize because typically you reorganize in the in the summer I when we get appointments. So, it's kind of a little off to be reorganized necessarily, but makes sense reorganized when you need to reorganize. You can do it as many times as you want. Exactly. So, um, of course, if you're okay, we can nominate Bob to be vice chair and you could probably remain clear. That's fine. It seems here. Okay. All right. I can take a motion. I'll take a motion to re to nominate Bob as vice chair. I'll second it. And All right. Motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I motion carried. And then for clerk, I take a motion. I nominate commission for secretary. Clerk. That's right. Different committees have different wording. Yep. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I motion carried. Um because we aren too much financially. Do we want to hold off on appointing a treasurer at this time? Yeah, I don't know what the treasurer is going to do. Correct. When you figure it out, we'll do something about it. I love that plan. All right. So, we got reorganization all set. Uh, next up is the licensing agreement. Is that what that says? Yeah, current licenses. Okay. Did everybody have a chance to review the current licenses? I didn't see a packet posted for this week, so I wouldn't certainly wouldn't there. They're online. Good job. Okay. Um, so does anybody have any discussion or how do you guys want to handle being familiar with them? Well, it's uh the way I see it is that it's something that you only need to kind of review to it if there's

some question as to um a conflict or some issue that you have to resolve that the license may have the answer to that as as a pass license or using the purpose of a future creation of a license as a as a guide. Yep. Other on that I'm not sure how much familiarity you really need to have with it specifically. Right. So, but that's just the first line of our our charge is to be familiar with it. So, I guess we just in order to fulfill our charge just I'm going to go line by line with it. Says to be familiar with our license agreements. Let's be familiar with them. So, if we I would say we could just keep it as a standing agenda item, have it always be in the package. So if we ever want to talk about it, if we ever need to refer to it, it's right there at the tip of our fingers. Um especially if someone from the public comes in with a question, we're not having to scramble. It's just easy access and then uh keeps top of mind for that. So and there's nothing that when you were reviewing them, anything that stand out to you that you wanted to discuss or dive deeper? are pretty standard for I mean I don't review a lot of cable licenses so they look standard to me. Did you say you do review? No, I I work in um like right ofway licenses which Yeah, but um you're probably a lot closer to uh cable lices than most people. Most of them. I did a I did a lot of them up until the last couple. So I know Bill August's take on I think he's done now. I think someone else is going to do licenses in the future. I think I saw that he was stepping down getting out of the business. I don't know whether that's true, but it's

a little ways off yet. It's actually several years off yet. It was further than I thought it was. One of them, I think, is two or three years out, and the other is maybe seven years out. Yeah, it's a five year. Yeah, I think it's um I do think it would be worth as a committee project to review other cable franchises of the towns around us to make sure we're getting just as good a deal as all of our neighbors. Well, I think that bill better than No, no, we have to get better. No, but we are. But I think it's a it's a definitely a worthwhile exercise to be, you know, sure we're all Yeah. The old hearing is not as good as Yeah. I think, you know, with all my experience with Bill that um he knows, you know, he knows what we can get. I did get some stuff when I was, but that there was a different level of type of negotiation that went on in those days. These things are getting pretty well. What I recall was first of all that Bill August was uh very versed in these licenses because he didn't not only do it with Grafton, he did it with many other towns as well. Yeah. And he uh he was the perfect person to handle our license, but from his perspective, the one in the Grafton one was far better than what the other other towns have. and we basically had the upper hand uh as to what we get to get. We got the maximums that were allowed permitted by law and other factors were a lot of other towns didn't get anywhere near that. Uh they weren't able to get those those types of returns. So there were a lot of things that we were very good at negotiating and and uh things like having setting up the fiber optic network that we have in the town and

things such as that. There are no towns that have that ability of being able to do just that and result have the funds for for making that happen where we could do that. It also gave us the position to have drops and other facts that we couldn't have before. So, we've had some wonderful ex uh uh licenses that have been established so that we will have have the revenue and the means of of carrying uh different broadcasts different parts of the town and uh have the necessary funds to support too. Does the town Sorry. Has the town seen uh revenue from these franchises dip in any meaningful way over the call the last decade? That's not the fact I have. Subscribers you mean? Uh so typically franchises are set up and I can't remember how it is in these two but the town receives call it 5%. Yes. Of the that's what he said the maximum. Right. When I started we were getting nothing. Uh yeah, I believe it. And the first the cable committee had a got a town meeting vote for $900 so that they have something and we got the you know we got up over a couple of license cycles. Sure. But as I saw that we got up to the the 5% and that's the you have to do a good bit to to get that you have to demonstrate that you need it and so on. Oh yes. Um but has the town as people cut the cord as they stop having cable has the town been receiving less how much less revenue? Yeah. And it's been even the now treasurer also

spoke about that. That wasn't really something we had been tracking previously when we were doing the oversight. That wasn't it was never discussed in any of the meetings that I It was more of a curiosity than anything else. So what is what is this that you're handing that is a treasury report? No, we had a lot of information for June of last year. Yeah, but could you show me a trend of every year like she's asking of as people? Not right now, but And that's all I'm saying is that we don't Yeah, that was reported. Okay. Could you show me on this where it shows the trend of how we've been? No. Right. And that's all I was saying here is that we don't have that. But I'm saying that on we do have we did have reports in the history if you look at them uh about what the subscriber base is because it's basically it's the number of subscribers you end up having. That's what I was saying before that you have a certain ones for each of the different groups whether it be for Verizon or Charter as it were at the time. Uh and uh you could see where people would shift from one company to another and it would relatively stay the same uh or you could see where there was a drop or a decrease in them. So you actually had more than just total. You could actually see the breakdown of where people were moving to one way or the other. Um and that was basically all drived also by the uh revenue as it came in because you could tell from the amount of dollars received from one uh cable subscriber from the other you get an idea to see what the the variation is the the amounts actually I until things changed um I kept real close eye on all of this um kept a little less close eye but You can tell how many subscribers you have very

easily. You look at we get a check from each company for 50 cents per subscriber. So you divide the total check by two. Yeah. And you and it turns out that the companies in all that I've seen I haven't seen many much real recently but all for years now all through the cable cord cutting um the breakdown you know how many subscribers Charter has and how many Verizon has the ratio state almost exactly 2 to1 for a long time now I I think the total numbers are going down but you know they keep increasing the revenue so that our numbers aren't changing hugely. I'm afraid we we in what the latter part of our watching um was grouping down and brought up many times in many meetings. We're going to be very aware of Got it. So, when we did our annual report, did we include any of that? What our current subscriber number is and where it was? No. We didn't do it in the previous year either. Okay. That's definitely something we should be doing going forward so everybody's aware of what our current subscriber numbers are at. And that's a great way to keep tracking them going forward so we know what the trend is doing. Yeah. You'd have you'd have to have those numbers. You'd have to find Yeah. payments. Yeah. But it sounds like if that's truly if it's 50 cents like that, then it's great. It's like you said, we can just figure those numbers out and then we can create that that data going forward. Um, back to the organization. Uh, do we have a treasurer? We're not going to have a treasurer right now. No. So, there's no

treasurer until there's something for treasurer to do. She's she's going to figure that out. That's right. That's right. Yep. So, because those checks are coming in, so it's easy enough to go get that information and then create the So that's it would be it'd be I think it'd be good for us to follow, but I don't want to give anybody any extra work. You you like work. That is true. They should be used to somewhere. So we were getting pictures of those checks until we became advisory committee when we were oversight. We were getting them. So those will all be readily available and then I can just ask to be continuing to receive them or just you know give me amount. I don't need the picture. I don't know. We'll figure out a way to get that information. Bob was doing that, you know, he's in the hall. He he's there in the daytime and he was having over the last I don't know couple of years more or less a lot of trouble getting workable print outs and whatnot. He was having a lot of trouble. So you'll have to see what you can get. Wasn't there hasn't there just been fairly recently a change in the I would I would say Mary Lori has been there for Yeah. He used to go to Okay. But there's Okay. I I remember hearing something. He used to cut and paste stuff, right? Yeah. He would he had to do he kept having challenges. Y So you you're better able than to uh Yeah, we can do that. Get that. And I like I do like the idea of getting other licensing agreements to make sure that we're still even if it's some like oneoff one time payment that account is getting you're

the answer is never going to be yes if you don't ask. Right. Right. Yep. I 100% agree. I like seeing what other people are doing to to steal their good ideas and avoid their their pitfalls. Okay. Um does anybody have anything else to discuss about current license agreement at this time? Because I think next time I'll post I'll try to get a couple agreements. Is there specific towns you guys want to see? Not off the top of my head. Okay. I think ideally it would be like sim similar in population neighboring towns too and geographically close to us. Perfect. Okay. Because Worcester is definitely going to get a different deal than Grafton is, right? But you know. Okay. That's I'm thinking like Westboro. Thinking like in that kind of Sutton West probably North Bridge Westboro is probably closer than some of the others. Shrewbury is a very interesting case because they own the cable company. They are the cable company. They're the power company and the cables. Interesting. And then I don't want to look at theirs. Well, so so um things are interesting there about that. Um and the guy that you know the Bob Dtoma up there department head um has been there I think ever since he lift left us about a thousand years ago in Shbury. Yeah. Um you know once every 10 or 15 years I go up there and Hi Bob and I remember and oh yeah he's a Bob too. Okay. So, u but now if you go further field, you know, to the smaller towns to that way, um now you're beginning to look at maybe

they're not quite as up on them as we are. They just have less leverage because they don't have the population. Exactly. Yeah. North's got a pretty good population. Yeah. South. Yeah, South Broadway I think is is going a little bit further, not neighboring, but but uh it's all relative. Ashland Ashland is the most comparable town to us populationwise, budgetwise. It's It's not super close proximity, but Ashland's very Yeah, I've had some interaction with him. I don't remember what it was about, you know, some of our stuff. part because they were I maybe they were involved in the same thing we were or maybe it was be somehow because we were similar and I know the department head in Hopington so that might just be easy just to get have a connection there is a it's not time yet but at at Traditionally, there's a fairly long lead time was when the cable licensing process initiates. Um, it's like you want to be talking about that a year ahead. So we have some time but I think we want to know and this will be a it will be a figuring out um who the council is going to be which will come from the administrator.

I don't know. I think the administrator decides it, not the board. The board the administrator does what the board wants. So, I'm not worried about it. But I think the charter he's he's in charge of legal. Yep. Because that's that's what we're going to be doing is advising them when when it comes to time. So, you know, even if the first piece of advice is it's time, you know, like, yeah, in order to be able to do that, we have to know ahead of time, right? It's going to be time, right? And data like this is what we've seen in other communities. This is what we've been seeing in subscriber numbers. That's the kind of stuff they're going to want from us. So, if we start collecting that and compiling it now and when we do our annual report, you know, it's going to look a lot different, but it'll be, you know, that kind of stuff that, you know, we're still offering great service. Probably be two two, three lines, but That's what we'll be doing going forward, which is great. Conduct a public hearing. Um, I'm not going to worry about that for at least a year. Um, there is I remember I don't know where that came from. Um, you know, you can do that. I guess because um it hasn't happened in a long time. I guess that we do have a public hearing as part of the licensing process. That's, you know, one time in the progression during that renewal year. Um, if the license doesn't conflict with it, licenses don't conflict with it, perfectly happy to have a public hearing. People can come and complain. We don't get anywhere near the kind of complaints we used to, right? Is that data we've been tracking

the the the types of complaints, the number of complaints? We used to get a report like that way back charter greater greater graft table. Um but that's like 30 years. Um and it wasn't very helpful. Um no, we don't I don't think we get that's complaints going to them. We're talking about people coming in town hall, right, emailing us or we had one time down at the uh the studio when we met down there. We walked in and the room was full of people and there was like 10 or you remember this were 10 or 20 people there to complain or or you know there was some issue. Um okay, we talked I don't resolve what it was about. Um, but other than that, you know, I don't know when I've gotten the call in recent times. Anybody complaining goes direct to the provider. Yeah. Goes direct to the provider. Well, that that's that that would be normal, but we can, you know, if there's an issue, um, usually town meeting, town meeting is usually when I notice somebody complaining about cable access. I can't hear it. I can't, you know, that's generally the types of stuff we hear and when they're watching town meeting, that's that's a difficult feed. It's a live feed in a in a room that we're not typically operating in. And but we've been trying to dial that in over the last couple years. So, yeah. And also I suppose it's channel selections about what they have, what they want to have, why they drop this, and why is cable so expensive? Yeah, exactly. It's just there's a whole lot of stuff that the town's not allowed to which we have no control over any of

that. That stayed the same since you know it was what uh 84 this committee right after charter charter license was adopted for the first time. for that greater graft and cable vision the company. The one thing I could think of that uh was very slowgoing and that was on the very first license agreement set up with Verizon was that one of the commitments that they had to have was they had to offer it to every single uh household in the town. But there were certain complexes which was underground where they didn't have any easy way of being able to put in the lines. So the agreement was they had to have it done by a certain length of time uh as specified in the agreement. They never met the deadline. Eventually they they ended up getting him there but I mean they were in breach of the the contract although we never pressed on the issues on it. The original license for Greater Grafton charter um started off that in those days in the early 80s it wasn't so common to say you're going to serve every home. They were they just wanted to come in and go where they wanted to go. The easiest places they could get where they the one that's the ones that have the most people per cable mile. Um uh yeah and uh there is a process of the select you know the select board

can call a company in now we're having this problem or maybe maybe people would go direct now I mean have to keep up with uh Facebook. What's what people complaining about? I've I've answered a few people. There's somebody there's somebody out there that can't get the cable connected, but you know, it's a technical issue that it's up on too long a driveway and there's something they can't blah blah blah and they don't know enough technically to know why it is. I've been back and forth with them once or twice. I think more of the complaints we've had have been our own internal complaints with, you know, connections with Potter Hill and noise or or other factors that we're having to to deal with and get corrected and having to keep sending people out, fix this and oh, there's no problem here and the other is still a problem and having to trace it down and and taking a long time, several months before they're actually resolved. Those those are the ones I'd say the biggest complaints is our own. Yeah. During co there was you know a lot more people tuning in and we were tweaking a lot more stuff during that time too. I remember Dtomo was working really closely since I don't have the technical knowledge but there was something technically going wrong but they couldn't identify if it was us or was them. They didn't want to say it was them but it was not us. So it was but it seemed as resolved. I went back and forth with our operators here. Um because there was an problem on one

of the audio. I think probably the shorter audio, but um no, I kept just interacting a little bit, but okay, they're supposed so and so is supposed to come out again next week and And you probably filter it up pretty well. Yeah, I understand about that. Y and and you know we do what we can. We have we used to have more technical people who could interact. We still have one or two. Nice. All right. Do you guys want to keep talking about this or you want to move on to minutes? And I didn't see any minutes. I gave you draft one which you wanted me to correct and I sent out draft two. I misdraft you. Okay. Borrow that. Sure. I highlighted I think I think you might see it highlight. That was the change. Well, it was Yes, it's in red. This is for March. March. Last month. All right. Well, I can take a motion. Do you want to Did you get a chance to review? Yes. Okay, great. All right. I can take a motion to approve the minutes from March 12th, 2025. So, I'll seconded. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All right. Could you just send me those again so I can submit them to be posted online? Thank you. All right. Um I I'm curious. A whole bunch like many sets of minutes from last year all of a sudden popped up on the website the town website on on our page.

Yeah. Well, I had sent some before, but they weren't getting posted and I said, "What's going on here? They're not going on there." So, okay. Um So, did you did you contact them? Yeah, I did. What triggered them? I said because they they weren't they weren't there. I kept sending something. But what triggered them to do something? I guess my final email said, "Look, these these were all missing. They need to be posted." So I How how are we doing that? That went up to I forgotten when late last year, but there's maybe four sets of minutes, three or four sets of minutes that aren't common for Well, there's some like January because there was no meeting. Well, on the on the web page, someone has put probably Bob uh has put links to the minutes, which I thought was interesting uh to all of the minutes. I want to maybe maybe ask Bob about um being sure that we're posted with all you need. I I made copies all of them. Anyone reviews any of the past ones here? And are these the dates? Do you have you seen what he's talking about? Are those the dates that you were emailing about? Um I can I can review my my email a lot of 2024 ones. Yeah, it was it was basically Yeah, it was catching everything up with what was missing. All right. And I don't want to Okay. I haven't seen this yet. So that's how they're doing it. Well, that's that's what's on our the cable advisory committee page. So it sounds like they group all of them on one particular day. I've never seen

minutes dealt with this way before. I think that page I'm not sure. I suspect maybe the one. See, I can't do this. Okay. So, what I see online where minutes typically go, they're all there except for August 13th. Exactly. So, if you go to the agenda center where most people would go looking for minutes, all the minutes are there except August 13th. Okay. So, those look good. And then additionally, um, so maybe and I I'm I'm almost positive we will we uh there is no August 13th. So that could be why August 19th. Well, we in the agenda sent there. It looks like maybe we were going to meet the 13th and end up meeting the 19th, right? So that's great that there's no minutes for that one. Um and like you said in January, it looks like there was a posted meeting, an amended meeting in the meeting. So all of 2024 is up in the agenda center and easily found. It looks like it's just going to be in two places on the website. Um maybe we can clean that up on our page. And then for 2025, You haven't probably no reason you would have. I was just looking at that. Yeah, it was at the this is this is the website, correct? That's on not not the uh not the agenda center, right? So that's on our page, which I guess if people are coming and they're interested, making it accessible to them in two locations isn't the worst thing. No, it's fine. I I don't know whether it needs to be on the front page. Yeah, I agree. I don't know if it needs to be there, but that's okay. No, I see uh 31524 through 1024 24. But then we met in November. Uh yes. And December. Yes. Yes. And those are in the agenda center though. So we don't have to worry about it'd be nice to have this be if we're

going to do it have a complete so that I don't get confused anymore. Okay. 2025 there was no January, February and just in March. Yep. Perfect. Do you typically submit them to the clerk's office after we vote? Okay. So, I don't have to worry about that. So, you don't have to send me that email then. That's why I was asking so I can submit it. So, if you're going to submit it, fantastic. Um, awesome. And then the next is going to be meeting dates. So, when do you guys want to meet next? Oh, we're not uh we did minutes um but uh access activity report. I I thought we were still going to be getting that so we'd know what was going on. That wasn't Boba going to be determin he's been submitting a written report but he was submitting copies of bills and you know the other things too but we don't have access is the most important or has been to us. Um, I think it's gotten to be an important thing for the town, particularly on public stuff. Um, so I think it'd be good for us to be keeping our eye on it. And I I take it, you know, it had been coming to me and it didn't come to me this time. I can reach out to him now that that the committee's kind of changed its makeup a little bit. Maybe he was unclear what what we were looking for in act or maybe all of my confusion about my my email is broken today and yesterday. Yeah, I can get on something. So, uh moving forward and and like you said, we we want to see those checks, those payments as they're coming in. That's how we're going to track subscribers. So, that would be included in activity report. I would like to see that. Um you

know, we don't necessarily need it in in real time, but that's as the data comes in, we're going to want it. Seems I recall that Bob Thomas says he was going to be attending the committee meetings quarterly. We haven't seen him for the first quarter this year. I can reach out. I can touch base. Well, maybe things that changed too perhaps. Yeah, there I mean there was been a lot of change. I wouldn't I wouldn't be nice though if you're going to change that. what the committee know. Did you reach out to him at all or no? When you were chair four minutes ago? Okay. No. No. I I I I send I include him on the agenda inputs request. Um and then I send to him when the next meeting is going to be and he and he sends back essentially, yeah, you know, we're going to use the room and here's the Zoom of stuff. Um, and then I think in a separate in a separate step he was doing what what happened in the studio and here are the bills and so on. Yeah, we don't need the bills anymore. I I don't think well we don't need the bills. I'd love to be able to watch the money, you know, how we're doing, but that's that's I think we're talking about that already once a year, you know what I mean? At the end of the year, you know, during budget cycle, I don't we'll figure it out because it's just it's not really anywhere in our charge to to to be following the money. So, yeah, except I think that it was um something that the um What's the

name? Financial for the town. Mary Lauria. No, no, his name town administrator. Town administrator. Sorry. Evan. Yeah. Evan, right. Um was saying that meeting with us quarterly was was reasonable to have come in. Oh, we're talking about two different things. Yes, I agree. So, yeah, I don't disagree with that. I can reach out to the department head and and then he was saying he wants to follow the money and I was thinking that maybe annually we get an update of what came in, what came out, where we stand. Um because I don't think we need to be watching it every month and you know as a license we're like we're getting close like you were saying two to three years. So we're getting closer to one, right? So meeting but I don't know if we necessarily need to keep meeting every month either. Like we might be able to move to a quarterly meeting schedule as well. I think right now it wouldn't make sense. We're still getting our feet wet. We're re reorganizing and how we want to operate. But once we get all of our data in place, meeting once a quarter kind of makes sense, too, because there's going to be that much to talk about, right? We're going to just keep having the same conversation each time. So, not super productive. We'll see. I don't think that we're there just yet. I think we have like a lot to go over, a lot to collect. So, that's exciting. But once we've achieved all that, it might make sense to move to a more, you know, extended meeting period. We can talk about that when we think we've gotten there, though. Meeting date then? Yeah. I mean, are you all done talking about the activity report? Uh, well, I did. Okay, great. I don't I don't have much to say about it because I um let me see. Uh, what was So, I'm gonna say right now May 21st would most likely be our next meeting date. Wednesday. Yeah. And I will most likely be fried because I'm going to be at the polls all day the day before. So, I can't guarantee you're

going to get the best performance on me. I'm probably want to be asleep um to be honest. So, if everybody's okay with doing the 28th, just pushing it a week out and doing at the end of May um instead of the third Wednesday, do the fourth Wednesday. I would I would appreciate that if that works for you. You want the 28th? Yeah. Okay, perfect. May 28th. I have no idea what you'll be doing that that Tuesday. I hope I hope I know what I'm doing that Tuesday, but we'll see. Oh, well, no. You know, I just We'll see. We'll see what Grafton says. But there's a lot of energy going into this election. Sure is. I mean, I've been through a lot of elections. Yeah. Yeah. So, cable here 7 o' Wednesday, May 28th, 7:00. All right. I can take a motion to move. Motion being seconded. That is not debatable. Don't you forget that. All those in favor? Motion carried and we are adjourned. Thank you everybody.