Cable Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

[Music] All right, it is 7:05. He has not texted back. So, we'll call this meeting of the cable advisory committee to order. Um, there is no zone component, so it's just whoever's in the room tonight. We have a forum with Corus and Megan and myself. Uh, first on the agenda is public input. Um, there's nobody in the room for that. Um, up next we're going to discuss the current license agreements with Charter and Verizon. So, um, those were posted up in the PAM. We we've had copies of them circulating and I just didn't know what metrics we wanted to compare them to for other communities. So, which what do we want to pull out of charter? what we want to pull out of Verizon in our own contracts so that we can be checking in the other communities and then obviously we see something additional in another community bring back to so I didn't know if that was something we wanted to start with just to to give us like a a guiding work and yeah well I would love um some whether it's someone from the town to come in and talk to us about what is most important to them. Okay. Because that should be what's important to us. Yes. In addition to any uh citizen input and and feelings they have about charter or Verizon. It the money is kind of self-evident, but there's got to be more than that, right? Okay. Uh and that would just that insight would be helpful. I I think Yeah. Yep. [Music] Um what and so that complimentary services is one that comes to mind. So like

what are they giving us in terms of whether it's airtime, whether it's community donation, whether it's inind service, internet in our municipal buildings, things like that. Um those those are kind of the big ones that come to my mind cuz all the the boring lawyer stuff is probably pretty much the same. Okay. But they're not going to change that anyways. I know they're not going to change that but okay. So those are the things that come to my mind. But I would appreciate input from uh some of our elected officials, one of our elected officials, someone we pay to tell us what's important to the town. Okay. So it would probably I would probably start with our I don't know if our funding head was involved in that but start with them. Y and then maybe go to the town administrator the the select board they get the contract there. They Oh sure the authority but I don't think they weigh in as much. No I know Bob not our Bob but the other Bob that's on the email chains. Right. Right. Dtomo. Yes him. I could not remember his last name. Bob Dtomo. I know we briefly touched on last meeting having him come maybe once a quarter and maybe that's something we can talk about for next month's meeting. Yep. Is asking him to come prepared to talk about his standards. Okay, perfect. Um can we define what a quarter is of the year? When to when does the town do you know if the town runs on a calendar year? No, they don't. They run on July to June. Well, that makes sense. So, I guess the Q1 would be July, September. Nope, I skipped August, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March. Okay. He never showed

up for that quarter. It happens. Uh, April, May, June. So diplom. So this will be the second quarter. Yeah. So next month would be the last meeting of the quarter. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Um I'm also not tied to him coming once a quarter. If like there's nothing for us to talk about. I'm not looking to waste anybody's time. No. I think our um charter has changed so significantly that I think it would be I don't know how much input that if every for every fl right yeah I think it's going to eb and flow how how much the department head needs to come in and and when when there's something specific like we're requesting now that makes sense but I don't think there's going to be a lot of updates um when it gets closer to negotiating with time and things like that sure but I don't I don't I I kind of lean towards what you're what you're thinking as well um do you have any parts of the agreements that you want to see teased out that we should be focusing on? About the agreements, you said that they were in the packet on there? I didn't get them for the packet. I got those from my own records. Oh, that's Well, they're on the packet though for anybody. I don't know if these are the same ones that that you had. Okay. So, so yeah, let's see. That one would have been dated. They both were fairly recently. Yep, that's that one. And in the house. Yeah. Yep. Same ones. Okay. So, and are the ones you have signed? No. Okay. So, the ones in the packet are are the signed ones. Yeah. I found one through Google. They were signed. So, well, yeah, those are the ones that are available. These are the ones that we had on that committee. Yeah. So, additionally in the packet are Westboro's charter and Westboro's

Verizon. So, I started collecting the other HUD um agreements and I was able to go through Westboro's charter and ours charter. That that's all I could really go through. And I teased out some of the things that, you know, I thought we should look at, like, you know, uh they're both 10-year contracts and they uh they both have PEG capital grants, they both have PEG access supports, the license fees, and all of those things that I could find in similar that were similar, but they were very different amounts. So, for example, like the pen capital grant for us, we get $6,000 annually where they get $200,000 paid out over two $100,000 payments. That's significant to me. So, what do how do we, you know, but then the PEG access support, they get we get 5% of gross revenue, they get 4% of gross. So, is is that where they're getting their tradeoff? Um, and then everything else looked pretty much similar. And then I got down to the performance bond. Ours is 25,000. Theirs is 40,000. So those are some of the things I just I think it's going to take time to tease things out and as we get more contracts. Uh I have Sutton as well now that didn't make it into the packet. So I'll get that one up there. Um I'm in the process of getting Milberries. Um the one thing I found talking to all of these communities is Westboro S and Milbury are all all their contracts are currently expired. They're all in the process of renewing them and they're all having difficulty with them renewing them. So, that's a trend I just discovered by accident, but something we should be aware of as it comes time for us to renew when it when I mean, we're not worried about charter. Um, but you know, but we should be I think given that we should be going on the earlier end of when we think we should start talking renewal to give ourselves as much runaway as possible because once it's expired, you lose just a lot of

leverage. Yeah. So, so there those are some issues they're they're having. We don't currently have that issue, thank God. But uh just to be mindful aware of that that obsiding. Um and then you you've uh deciding not to do anything about Shbury. I just didn't reach out to Shbury. I I mean I had the list that was Shoesbury wanted the task cuz I didn't have it. Was it was a unique situation if you recall. Shoesbury was one where they're their own cable company. They're their own this and that. How beneficial would that franchise be though? Because we would never get the same terms. Agreed. No, no. But to see from that from their perspective as to what they have what they got for that establishment of being their own and it gives you better outlook as to what might be possible with the broker providers. Well, I wonder if they even have their own franchise cuz if why would the town contract the town? Again, these are things that would be interesting to know. I agree. I think they're interesting to know. I think we should dive down like it's a lot of data that we have currently. Yes. And I think we should drill down on that. And then like you were saying, it's not going to be super apples to apples with that. But I love data. I love information. So I think that that's that could be like the next step once he s through all that. So I am Milbury and Westboro. I reached out to Hopkin and I never heard back. Um, was there any other towns or is that enough or is that enough of a subset started at Ashland as well? Ashland has we are how similarly situated to them. Yep. They're a Comcast town. I grew up there. How I know they're a Comcast town. Um, but they do have Verizon as well. So, we will have that. I will get those.

Um, and then I will I'll do my best to we'll post immediately for our next meeting just so we can get a packet and then the the agenda will probably look ex like this only I'll add minutes cuz I didn't have minutes to put on this one but next meeting we'll have minutes. But that way we'll have agreements in place that are easy to find for all of us but easy to find for anybody playing at home and then we can just start teasing the pout. Um, do we all want to do it as individuals or do you want to do like Verizon charter? You know what I mean? Like how do we want to divvy up the work or or do we not want to divvy up the work? I don't think we should divvy it up. I think we should each have our own perspective as what they are and then compare that with each other's when we meet to get some sort of uh idea on it. Um, as you say, each of us should should really skip through, you know, scan through this to to see skim through it here and there and and and get every uh grasp of of what the license is uh so that um we can see what we're getting and then have the comparison accordingly. Okay. So, do we want to start by doing the charters first and then do the Verizons? If you want to pick what? Sure. just to when we get you we'll be looking at charter ones so we're not screwing ourselves up looking at different contracts uh lean more towards Verizon just if only because their renewal comes up first I like that okay so we will do Verizon first we have Grafton Westboro Sutton I'm going to work on getting Ashley I'm still waiting to hear back from Milbury um so we'll get those posted up and we'll start tackling the Verizon ones and try to find the comparables between the to and you know report back when our next meeting what we what we found and and things like that. Almost um the other thing that we're supposed to be doing is reviewing complaint data.

So additionally one of the documents in the packet was the report frame charter directly about the complaints and their complaint log and things like that. So that's available on the town website. I don't know. It wasn't I mean there's data there, but it wasn't something and then the contact I have for Verizon email not found. So I need a new Verizon contact. But at least my my charter contact worked and I can just keep posting those reports as as they become available. So we stay on top of that and we start to see a trend of looking at those too. As you're requesting the Verizon uh franchises, ask if they have a contact So, oh, when I talk to the other towns. Yeah. Yeah. They're having difficulty. But that's a good point. But they at least they have someone that's your contact. Yeah. Uh I was going to go through our um attorney who helps negotiate these. See, they had a contact. Was that that's a good one, too, to go through what the other towns are doing. You're referring to uh Bill August. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, he's on the first cover of one of the agreements here. Yeah. has been around for a long time with us. Uh Yep. and supporting us. Yep. So, he he should um hopefully have a contact at Verizon I can get just try to get the complete report from. So since what I had going on, do you guys have any additional input about any of that or any any strategy for any of that [Music] or No, I think we're bit of a place moving towards complying with our own the charter, our own mandate for what this committee is is formed for. Um, would be great if there were people here to talk to us about cable, but I don't want to break your heart, but I don't get a lot of

attendance, but um, just try to get uh, uh, something more at the quorum show up. Yeah, this is the lowest it's ever been, though. Honestly, usually we have poor attendance. I know uh Bob's very upset about not being able to make it tonight, but uh you know exactly man. So uh how do what's the largest number of citizen attendees we've had? You are our historical font of knowledge here. Uh you meet at one of our meetings with [Music] uh maybe about 10 or 12 screw. Wow. Um there's a couple meetings. There's about three that we're attending since I've joined. Okay. I need to do that. When there's um a Zoom component sometimes people hop on at one point the SL board really interested. So we had a member here and a couple on Zoom watching and um so that that es and flows I think it's fair. That's what we're talking about. But what what drove that attendance to where it was that high? Well, um I think it was rel to um some of the uh u issues associated with the the the the service defaults that we had and this was ba basically when we're at the other studio. Oh. Um and uh over there and uh we used to meet in in that in that studio. Um and uh that was always on a Saturday Saturday morning. Um and it was it was convenient time to actually meet. At least I thought it was because um know that there wasn't any rush for anybody to go anywhere. Bob, it worked out for great for Bob. Um and basically we finished up before noon time. But it was also kind of nice because we even got to the habit of bringing cheese and crackers and things all the was a very nice arrangement. Um but uh I would say there were issues with um some of some of the equipment. Um there was also battery

backup systems that were set up where they had things that were faulty and um bringing in some of uh the people from uh the place where we got the material or or the manufacturer of of the stuff. Uh and um we've had of course Bill August and uh and others that have have come in um to uh to go over the license materials and so forth. And uh we've had um McCannernney when when he was around um also stopping by and and uh and and being part of the the meetings and things and um so it it it varied quite a bit. So those are people that came and participated. But did you have people like coming as as residents for for the meetings? No, but we did we did have every once in a while someone would or wanted to come in and and and uh propose something that uh being called uh you know that that like they wanted to put on some sort of show or some sort of a program, but it would require some uh effects, you know, either some hot plates or some other things that that we were concerned with. Uh some safety concerns or other equipment or other things had to be brought in. and uh it was to smooth out some of those things. Also uh when it came to uh bicycling some of the the videos from town to town and um and the handling of that whether there was a fee and and handling it and and again discussing that with a couple of other people from the outside about it. So there were some variations. Very cool. All right. Uh next meeting date. Do you guys have any Yeah. How about June? This sounds good. I like June. I will be out of town on the

26th. So, normally we meet in the third week. June. Let me tell you about June. Oh, tell me about June. I hate this holiday. Juneth, which is the 19th. Yes. Yes. I am uh flying out to San Francisco. Okay. and I my daughter's um getting married and I won't return until um uh July 6th, so I won't be around for any of that type. So, normally we meet in the third week and normally we've been meeting on kind of Mondays and then we just started tipping into Wednesdays. Normally we don't really meet on Thursdays. This was cuz I couldn't get the agenda posted if I were the holiday. Okay. Um so I was thinking maybe June 18th. Is that is that going to be hard for you leaving the next day? I I'm suspecting what what's going to happen is that I guess we leave I think it's like 3:00 a.m. on the 19th. So you So yes would be the So it might might be difficult because of the fact is that we're going to have to go to bed kind of early or start getting back getting ready so we can Yeah. Um the 16th works for me this Yes. So, let's all tentatively say the 16th and then let's also double check with Bob. I don't know if planning board's meeting that night and and that could be a conflict for him. Um, so we'll all say tenatively the 16th and then what's the 11th? Okay. Um, I don't know if the 11th if that's just too soon if that gives people enough time to go through the the contract. Um, let me see. How do I want to do this? Cuz I want to get it posted real quick so everybody can have access to the content, but I also need a date to post. I will fire off an email to the committee tonight and propose the 16th. Fingers crossed that works. I'll get it

posted and get material up there for everybody. And if not, would the 11th work or is that just kind of too soon? Dealing with the works for me. Okay, so we'll start with the 16th. and we'll see what works best. Bob and hopefully uh talk to your friends and neighbors and family. Anybody watching at home, we do have an opening coming up. Carl is not seeking um another term. So, we are going to be looking for somebody to join this wonderful committee and go through all of these wonderful contracts with us. So, do you like reading? That's what this is. So, all right. Um, if nothing else, I take a motion to adjurnn. Do we need to uh work about the minutes? Those did not make it on the agenda, so we cannot approve those tonight. So, I didn't have them in time for the agenda, so they'll just go on the next agenda cuz the agenda was posted. You sent before you sent those out yesterday. The agenda had already been posted, so we didn't get them in time. So, they'll be on the next agenda. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So I can take a motion to motion to adjurnn. All second is the motion being seconded. All right, that's not debatable. So we are adjourned. Everybody have a good night. Thank you.