Cable Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

[Music] your conversation with DTOM go. I think it went really well. Um, it was a productive conversation. Um, and really the biggest piece I got out of it and his frustration is largely the charter and their just non-responsiveness, there being a lack of an escalation point for the people he needs to reach out to. Sorry, my eye is watering. Um, this is Bob. Yes. And that is something he would really like addressed on a move forward basis. um when there are issues, having at least a couple levels of people he can reach out to in terms of importance at Charter to get issues addressed when there are outages, but not the same with Verizon. He's okay with Verizon. He really likes the Verizon setup. He has a great rapport with the Verizon team um in terms of getting issues troubleshooted. Awesome. Oh my goodness. I promise I'm not crying. My eyes are just It's very emotional. Cable advisory done, guys. How How long is it until our first renewal? So, Verizon's in uh let's see, charter is not going to be for a while. I I have that information. Well, do you have it off top of your head? You can. When does it expect? No, it's it's in my report. I generated a report. It looks like it was signed in 2023. Verizon was So Verizon's going to expire before is it five years? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's eight and this is five. So that's three years away. Um it's

early to beginning other than hey you know when we call them up we got this problem with this thing. Um you're not you know that's the level for that. What about um the other company? Charter is significantly farther away. That's 10 years and we signed that in 21 or 22. So that's we we wanted to start with Verizon first because we knew that was going to be sooner. And uh did you establish that Bill August is still working with us? Yes. Because I remember being told that he was retiring, but that's good. Yes. Um I did reach out to Bill. He's looking into some of the things I requested. He has not received that yet, but he did reach out to say, you know, he's still our point person. And that's great because I' I' I've been through many many cycles of having contacts, particularly with the charter, whatever they whatever this year's name is. Spectrum Spectrum. Spectrum. No, it's um Greater Grafton Cable and then it's Greater Media Cable and then and I have the license for Greater Cable Greater Grafton Cable Company when we were I think the f first but okay so Bill is that's good and going through Bill to find about contacts address them. This is Yep. But why doesn't Bob D do it? I mean, he's the department. So, she was Well, I think he reached out to you or I don't know how they ended up talking, right? But I don't think he was asking us to do it. I think through their conversation something on a move forward basis he would like addressed in future agreements.

Well, because he thinks that someone besides him should address it. He he would like the obligation to maintain up-to-date contact information addressed in the agreement. Yeah. Because he gets a contact and that person either is promoted or leaves and then he has no contact and it becomes a struggle when there is an outage to find someone to assist him. And that used to be our job for the most part. It was my job because I was chair most of the time. Um, and I I did that sort of thing with several people along the way. The last I remember some stuff was steered through Bill to them. He mentioned that Bill is someone he has reached out to in the past when he needs contacts, but that also costs the town money. every time we reach out to our lawyer, it costs us money. So, if charter is giving us up-to-date contact information regularly, that is to the benefit of the town. And that's not new unique to Grafton as we learned getting these other towns contracts. Other towns are having this difficulty as well with contacts and even getting their contracts renewed. So, I mean, we're not having that issue yet, but having a contact issue seems to be uh happening to other towns as well. I think that's a permanent condition of that company. I mean, it's been 40 years. So, are we talking about the current license agreements now? I could share my report. So, so we were still on A and Megan was sharing her conversation with the department head that she had had. Okay. Um, if anybody has anything else they want to add about A, um, we can. If not, we can move right into B. And Coren, you can start with your report

unless Okay. I I I uh put together a report. I didn't have time to upload it digitally, but um I printed out a copy for everybody. I'm just going to make sure we email this to DMA so it can get posted for everybody in the minutes or or you can just include it in your minutes actually just has that as an appendix. Okay, Corson. Fine. So what you can see is basically this is a comparison between all three licenses and the first page basically shows you all the different categories that it represents with each page covering each of those categories showing you the individual towns uh and what they each offer as well as what the differences are at the bottom. So you get to see all of the comparisons uh between them. And uh at the very end of the report uh to get to the back end of it, you'll see there is a summary of uh of the key uh uh differences between each of the licenses and u that kind of gives you a pretty much overview of the whole thing. That's a lot of work. Thank you for doing that. You this took me anywhere between 8 to 10 minutes to put this together. It's amazing. Quick question. Why did you use our draft license instead of the one that was provided in the packet? because that's the one that was uh I saw in the packet. Yeah, the dropped one wasn't what was in the packet. Oh, all right. So, that's upsetting to hear because that was not what I provided to have posted. Um, good to know. I could have sworn it was because that's where I took it from. No, no, you didn't mess up. You're good. That's something I need to know. The one I read the dropped as well. That's unfortunate. Okay. Um, so last last month's was not that will have the the actual signatures on it. Correct. So, I had them all printed out. So, I didn't actually look at the packet, but I emailed them all over to be uploaded again because that was the whole point of posting early for this meeting so that everybody had apologize that that

didn't get posted correctly. Um, we'll make sure we fix that. So, again, if you want to look at the things about the terms of the licenses there in in section one, uh, you can see Sutton is 15 years, Grafton's five, and Westbro's five. Um, and, uh, it tells you the differences. a sudden a significantly longer uh term 15 years compared with a shorter five years for Grafton and Westboro. The these are licenses with charter Verizon. No, this is all Verizon. This is Verizon. Only Verizon. Yeah, should say. So, uh I'm Yeah, I'm sorry. It It does say it in the italics at the top. No, Verizon. Verizon. Um, well, Sutton, Verizon. So, what we're doing, if I had had a chance to see it. Yeah. So, just so you're clear, what we're doing is we're looking at other towns and just comparing back and forth. So, yeah. All right. I thought of another town um that has been interesting in the past in terms of at least the access side of it. I don't know how they do on this um just south of Upton Milford. Milford, they have um they had a much nicer studio back when last time I went down there. I think we I'm not sure we were up here yet, but they had um They had a lot more going. So they may have good stuff in their license. Okay. This final statement at the end basically is saying Sutton agreement

2008 reflects an earlier regulatory environment with longer terms fixed PEG funding and no HD channels. They don't have any apparently. Uh Grafton and Westboro adopted newer technologies with HD channels. um uh competitive uh pressures with shorter term uh flexible funding protections for Verizon uh FTTP uh FTTP excuse me say it right graph provides provisions are the most detailed and stringent particularly in the PEG support 5% and oversight with the Westro balances uh flexibility with slightly lower financial obligations 4% and only a $40,000 bond because the the bond for graphin is even higher and you can look at the differences in the report between the two of us. So how do I do it in just 8 to 10 minutes? AI. Yep. Yeah. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I said, "Here are the three licenses. Create a report that compares all the differences between the two of them and summarize differes between them. And then did you double check it was correct? Yes, it was job. I could not believe how it could generate such a a a wonderful report. What What did you I missed? Uh uh Grock. Oh, created it. I wondered. Although that's better than I would have. Yes, I know. You know, I've been I've been just messing with it a little I just I I I gave the attachment of the three reports and it said, "Well, get right to it." Within 10 seconds, boom, there it was. But I asked today and Grock uh didn't know who the members of this committee was. Says it's not published. Um as well as the planning board and the ID

committee. Um and it says that the advisory committee was changed to the oversight committee um sometime recently. Oh, it just has it backwards. Well, I went through two maybe three cycles of no, it's this way. And Grock didn't care what I had to say. Okay. But the same thing for chat GDB. So Oh, no. It didn't get it wrong. It just didn't have it was a tremendous a tremendous timesaver and it it so in-depth. I I I just can't get over what it produced. That's pretty cool. Um, so I wonder if we should be looking at these towns demographics as well, like to know how many subscribers they have. If the town has 30,000 versus 20,000, that 4% might be equivalent to the 5%. You know what I mean? Like the the breakdown. You want to report on that, too? I mean, I guess. Yeah, I feel like it's easy to find, but if Grock can do it, knock it out of the park, Gro. Grock is amazing, I have to say. Well, there's what would you know where to find it in Grton? I think I may have mentioned how you what you do is you find out what their 50 cents per subscriber payment was. Then you just ask multip you know you divide a you divide.5 into that. Yeah. Hey Grock, do you know how many cable subscribers there are in Grafton Massachusetts? Cable subscribers. localized local subscriber numbers. All right. Well, so it's not in its maybe by next meeting. We'll see. If you give it some data, it can do the crunch the information. But still pretty cool to get us uh going on that and it and having it pull out that, you know, those are the metrics right there. it it

pulled it out for us for us to be looking at them and uh comparing them. So that's really cool. And it really seems like from my first meeting you guys were right. Grafson really does have at least for the Verizon franchise a good deal. Yeah. Yep. I got a couple more copies because I thought we were going to have other guests. There was no such one. But um I'll I'll certainly upload it. But but don't take this as absolute. No, you know, um as we know that's as I tested um but it's uh the little bit I've looked at it looks right or you know it close enough. Oh, it would have been interesting to compare with Shrewsbury though. You didn't have Shbury. We talked about Shrewsbury at the last meeting and how uh it's not really wouldn't be an apple to apples. So, I think we were going to focus on the communities that are like us and then graduate to Shrewsbury when we're done with this town. Well, Shrewsbury has a license with the town the same as anybody else. They their power company operates a cable system. I I think it's still structured that way. Um and the cable system, you know, cables around the power lines and that's also town. So they have they have a cable license. So when I left the meeting last time when we discussed Shrewsbury, I left with the understanding we were going to focus on these towns first and then graduate to Shrewsbury. If the committee would like to shift and include Shrewsbury now, I don't have a problem with it, but I just want to make sure we're all saying the same thing. That was my understanding as well is that we would do Shrewsbury later. But but you were under the imp under the impression that they didn't have a license. No, it was that they do it differently than graphic. Well, their

license is with themselves essentially. Yeah. But but I still thought that they have the same issue. A good idea is just see what they've been able to accomplish. We all agree on that, but we didn't want to muddy the waters when we're doing similar towns to do something slightly different to get to that later. But if the committee is shifting, I don't have a problem. I just want to make sure we're all saying the same thing. So, I agree with Colleen. I I think get there. Yeah. comparing similarly situated towns just with Verizon and then from there moving on to other providers I think makes sense because bringing something from Shrewsbury to excuse me to a negotiation. If you're focusing on Verizon only then that's a different story. I don't even know whether Malbury is Verizon. I think they might be chartered. Um, so Milbury still hasn't gotten back to me. Um, some of these communities are not as easy to uh engage with as others. Some get it right out to you and others are uh difficult to engage with, but I am working on it. Ashland, same. You have contacts in Ashland, though, or you grew up in Ashland? I grew up in Ashland. Okay. Let me know. All right. Well, I mean, if you can get me those Ashland ones, I would not be upset about it. Yeah. Have they gotten Verizon? Yes, they have Verizon. They have Verizon and Comcast. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I got that. All right. So, um we kind of just did B and C together. Is there anything um it's nice to have this summary right in front of us. Is there anything that's jumping out at anybody that we want to say to focus on or is this this is this

just kind of how we want to keep doing it each meeting? Um how about if everybody has a chance to look through it and see if they see any hot buttons. Okay. So, we'll just plan to dive further into the Verizon contracts at our next meeting after we have a chance to go over Corson's report and the agreements. And I'll try to make sure that there aren't draft agreements that the signs are up um until Okay. So, we said Verizon is the first one to renew. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, okay, that's the right focus or the better focus the renewal. I know that when we were doing these most recent licenses, the word was that the companies didn't want to go more than five years. Um, we had we had one where we finished the license and started on the next license immediately because it was a a a five-year thing. Uh, I don't remember exactly why or how. So, so other the communities like they were reaching out they were saying that um I don't know if it was Sutton. I have it written down somewhere that they're they expired and they can't get their contracts written. They're having difficulty with contact. It's got to be Yeah, they expired. They expired a year and a half ago. They're currently in the renewals, but um but Westboro said that they were Yeah, they got two more years. Yes. But they've been having frustrations as well. Um the charter contract says that they she had said that it expired in the

past December. Um but it's been frustrating for their committee as well. Sutton and Milber's is both expired and that's why they're not really sending it because they're not having luck with either company renewing as well. So it seems to be a trend um that you know I mentioned it at the last meeting too but when it came to charter spectrum uh we originally had licenses that were 10-year licenses with them and when Verizon came on the picture we tried to force them to go with a 10-year license so we would have the same uh circumstance and they said no absolutely not. Wonder why they did it and they would not they would not allow it. So, you know, we uh we just stick with a five. That's good to know. All right. Does anybody else have any input when it comes to Verizon? All right. Well, we'll circle back after we digest this uh report and confirm that it's all correct. And sure, I mean, I'm sure it's fine, but I don't know what else. It's easier reading than the contracts for sure. Yeah, I agree. This when I was doing the charter when I had to make a because that's how my brain works is to But yeah, that's that's good. All right. Who did Bill August did ours? Yes. Who did the other two? I mean, if I recall, Bill August had also done Westboro. I don't know specifically about uh Sutton, but I know for a fact he did Westbrow. So you'll find more similarity that way. Yes. Because he was I remember it's been sort of gravitating towards us much more standard form for all the time. But even when you look at this report, we're still better than Westboro in terms of a

lot of the numbers. Well, which license came first? Don't know. Westboro has always been Westboro. This current iteration came first, right? Westboro's came first uh in the current contract, which means that most likely they came first in the very first go around. In the first go around in the version that I have isn't signed, I don't believe. Our original license was 10 years with a fiveyear extension built in. And we made a a lot of fuss at the 10year point. started learning about this business and got quite well as I recall when we got began to get access actually working um because they didn't know whether the select would okay the added time they have the added five years All right. Well, moving on to minutes. We have minutes from April and May. Move you that we accept um approve the April 23rd minutes. I'll second it. Motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I uh opposed the motion carried. And then I do have a couple uh comments for the May 29th meeting. Um okay, cable oversight. Oh, and it might have said that in April, too. I didn't double check that because I was It does. So, um maybe starting in May, going forward. I'll fix that. No, I can fix it on the draft. I'll do that. We just approved

April the way it was, so it's fine. starting May. Um, under the license agreement with charter and Verizon discussion, the part where it says Megan noted hearing input from Grafton residents on what they would like to see changed and what's important to them. She also requested hearing from um town employees as well like the the town department head. So I just wanted to include that she had mentioned that that we were reaching out to them as well as um comparable services which kind of gets covered in the second line but um and then at the end of that where it says his attendance meaning the department head is needed at the end of each quarter. It was actually discussed that it might not be as needed um as previously is what the the conversation was. I I watched the meeting again this morning just to confirm that um and that we would be inviting him to this meeting and unfortunately he had a conflict but now that we're talking about just these licenses and the department head doesn't have a ton to do with those licenses. Um you know he didn't we don't really see a huge need unless we find a need and then invite him in like he was involved in in the creation of the of the licenses in the past negotiations as the department head or Yeah. So, Bob, right? So, that's why I felt it was important. Okay. I can reach reach back out again. It was his his uh um view on that was differently, but I can easily reach out, but that the part where it says his attendance is needed. We had discussed about maybe dialing back how how frequently he comes in that. So, that part wasn't correct. Um, and then I had that, you know, at the that last line, Bill August, the author of Cable Agreements for Additional Sport and a Verizon contact specifically, um, we were reaching out to him for and that none of the conversation about the difficulty that, um, these other communities have been having that wasn't included on here and we talked about that and I think that's important to track that about the difficulties. Yeah.

That with their renewing that they they've been having as well as our Shrewsbury discussion which I had called out and then we reh had again tonight. So those two things were I thought important to uh to capture in our minutes. Do I get to have you share that with me? So Oh well those are just my notes. So these are you can take this if you want. Um uh so you know those are the big things. So those are the ones we mentioned that were having difficulty in the process. These were my notes but they pretty much line up with yours just the highlighted ones. And then you had requested to review Shrewsbury. We talked about it and then we're going to explore it in the future which is exactly what we said again tonight. So, just to capture it in the minutes. Uh, okay. I just wanted to review those better so I could make my adjustments. Oh, yeah. Take whatever you want. And then, um, down here, we had two dates. We discussed June 16th and June 11th. That's how we're here. Actually, uh, we discussed a date that was closer to when I was going to go on my trip, and I said no. So, we said, well, how about making it the 16th, right? And then we picked the 11th, but that wasn't mentioned in the meeting. It wasn't? No. Okay. I had both in my calendar. I had both in mind as well. That's how we landed on this because I immediately reached out to. I I would have not if I hadn't looked when I looked, I never I wouldn't have made it to this meeting. All right. I guess just check the tape. Um because there was a reason I had it all written down, but um neither here nor there. And then meeting location is at the cable studio only. We can just remove that. That was never discussed, never said, and that's not a real thing. um me what I meant by only is that there's no longer any um simoc not I mean no um electronic uh meeting in other words using um like zoom so forth that's that was the intent where where there's zoom we're not doing zoom anymore well here's the thing you decide that we didn't and we could we just haven't I wanted to know why we weren't doing zoom tonight I just didn't have it set up and we didn't zoom and I don't I don't know why last meeting we're in. I

don't know why we're here rather than studio booked. The studio is booked. The studio is booked. We could not be in there tonight. Somebody's using it. Amazing. I guess that's the good news. Yeah, I I I like the studio. I like the musical center, but this was the room that was available for the night that we were I'm interested. That's the first time that the cameras have been switched. You know, there was a person doing something with the meeting, you know, like he is all all the All the other meetings we've had down there was just the recording of the Zoom, but that one was like select meetings and whatnot with somebody switching cameras and like maybe a cameras which is which was much better as far as the sound was different. It's pretty nice to be in F though as to see it because it's been redone. It's you know it's part of thing so it's cool to check it out and be in it. Cool. It's not that cool for No, it could be cooler in here, but ask me, but we we like I think one of the reasons I think I suggested we like the idea of meeting down there was to highlight that that space has intentionally been set up as a place for Yep. That's why it's booked tonight. That's why other people are meeting into it. I think it has been a success. People know it's available and people are using it. Now we can't use it, but maybe if we uh Oh, yeah. We'll we'll do our best. We will do our best. So, um we'll we'll bring the 29th meeting minutes back at our next uh just you can take it all out. Okay. One other thing, I'm not sure that there's any place in there to put it, but I wanted to note that in over 40 years, that was the first committee meeting I've missed. Include that in the minutes for tonight. No problem. That is very impressive. Um, next I haven't missed a planning board

meeting. That's unbelievable. 13 in my I'm in my 13th term. It's awesome. Of course, we had to cancel a couple of meetings because two of us couldn't do that. But um we won't hold that against you. Well, that was a long time ago. So, the rules and now that you have Mullet, it doesn't happen nearly as much. But I plan my vacations around. No, I wait for the three-w weekek every quarter there's a three-w week um between mon between our meetings and that's when we go on our three-week drive or we used to we don't anymore. Too many trips to the medical. Okay. Um next meeting date. I know we have some people going out of town for a wedding. Congratulations again. Um when will What does July look like for everybody? July. You don't get back till like that third week. I'll be back on the the sixth. The sixth. Oh, okay. Um the the 14th and the 28th planning board is not going to work. Um I don't know what dates you might be looking at. Do we have a preferred day of the week? I think Wednesdays we were we had been Mondays for a long time but because of the conflicts with planning board and then master plan Mondays were becoming hard. So we were kind of shifting to Wednesdays that seem to be working for people. Um not a lot of not a lot of committees typically meet on Wednesdays. So it gives us a lot of meeting space although tonight being an exception. my my um IT committee keeps trying to meet on Wednesdays. It's pencled in for the 2nd of July. Um

16. That's the only thing I have right now. Okay. But um July 16th or people on vacation that day, does that does that kind of work for people? That works for me. All right. Say it again. July 16th. Yeah. Does that work for you? July 16th at 7:00. Yep. Okay. Location TBD at the moment it does. Okay. Um studio. Yeah, I'm going to aim for that for sure. All right. Any other dates besides the 16th? Now that I'll ask you that, hopefully. Yeah, we can. The four of us are here. We probably don't need a second date. No, I think that's it. That's if it works for all of us, we're good. and it would just be coming down to the room. And if GCTV is not available, there are other rooms. There's a lot of meeting spaces. If they're all booked on the 16th, which they won't be, but let's say God grid will reach back out to you guys. Um, Zoom as well. So, if we're all available and we're all meeting in person, I can keep setting up Zoom. I just haven't because it requires just me reaching out to even more people to set it up and nobody ever uses it and it kind of did feel, but I can go back to using it if that's everybody's preferred. um thing there should be some recording. Oh, it's being recorded right now. I know that. But we don't have staff to record everybody. Um mostly we have only had staff to record, you know, the big three or the big four or whatever. Um and that may be a a limiting factor. You have to ask the people with the money. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, hardly anybody, you notice hardly anybody gets the in person coverage except spoken with select board planning board. We had an inerson attendee. We

had a select board attend in person at one of our meetings. No, no, no, no. I'm talking about so you can record with someone switching cameras and get a um get a good recording. Okay. Or get should have a recording uh so that we put it up on YouTube and on the town. I couldn't agree with you more. I think meetings being recorded is imperative. The SLboard has a policy about it and that is why we are currently being recorded. Yes. Um but Zoom gets that. Well, okay. I'm not going to run Zoom. Whoever that is the next challenging bit because uh our um we don't have a member that would run. I I don't usually bring a computer and you're not I'm happy to. Okay. If Yeah. You actually you actually have a clue how to do it. I can figure it out. No doubt that you could. All right. So, we'll just set up for Zoom. That's not a problem. And uh we'll just continue to do that. Um All right. So July 16, 7 o'clock, we'll do our best to get GCTV studio. We'll get a Zoom link and we will keep the agenda basically the way it looks so that if we do get um some special guests in that's great. They're on the agenda and if if they're busy again are busy again and we'll just keep trying. That work spelled business wrong. It's pretty awesome. Move we journ. I'll second it. All right, that is not debatable. All right. All those in favor? I oppos motion carried. Thank you. Good night. Done. Oldfashioned voice votes. You know we