God indivisible andice all thank you welcome everyone to our June meeting and uh I'm all everything done and let you on your way so you can really enjoy summer but tonight's all business so let's get down to it um we had minutes from our meeting in please forget the month of April if you haven't gotten a copy they were emailed um we can make you a copy if you have looked at them and you think they're absolutely fine you can make a motion thanks to accept the move second thank you all in favor again if You' like a copy that I've asked John to go in depth he's in the beginning of a new year he's got lots of things cooking on the back of his stove front of his stove wherever so go for it John all right last meeting I was asked a couple of things I'm going to touch upon and um well first one first one I don't have an answer you had asked for what did Spectrum uh what was the amount of the spectrum check in the first uh their first payment and I've reached out and I haven't heard back but I made that effort to find that out for us so I don't have an answer on that so that do you want to keep that as a question to be answered yep okay yep um the other thing was um sort of some direction on um the HD channel and what so just to review we have an opportunity to get an HD channel but that will cost cost us a SD channel so instead of three channels we'll move down to two um and i' like the board's opinion on what on what you guys want to do what my thoughts would be would be to combine the uh education and public channnel together on the high def and um keep government on SD because the meetings are just in meeting room I don't think it makes sense to have that in high depth picture is really good as it is now I think um but that's my thought I'd like to hear what you guys have to say um and some good news about that our server can't support 108i which is high def so it can be done on that end the one thing that I've fear over is um the encoders I don't know if our encoders can handle high def from Spectrum I would think if we were granted a channel they would immediately give us encoder um but we all know how that went last year so that's the only thing um that I concern about over that but again I like like to hear what you folks have to say about that that high def Channel um the other things were um some of the new news is um at town meeting uh we had a line item to increase um increase our help and it was approved and we've talked about hiring a part-time person here before in this room and um we um I've wrote uh both the Personnel Board and we're going to try to get the approval for the position onto the select board meeting on Monday that was all in the works today and um I don't know if it's made I haven't gotten a confirmation that it has or has not um so that that like I said will confirm whether we can have that position or not and if it does get approved at select board then uh the next step is to offer the job to someone and we've got I think we have an idea of what we're going to do there but I don't want to say anything now until the job gets approved so um and the other thing is I ran into a former student um she's in college just came home for the summer she's a acting school in New York and she was my pharmaceu of mine I've known her since seventh grade and um she's going to help on the public Channel outdoing stories and as a reporter and I've worked with her for many years and she's talented enough to do it she um you know I think Jason who's not here tonight also supported her he knows her very well too so we're going to see um if that can get approved too that's that's hopefully going to be on the select board agenda you did some Monday too so when your reports over we'll make somebody make a motion on that okay yeah um yeah and that's it and again the the plan for I guess for the year from my point of view is you folks gave me the task to grow the public Channel and I want and with some of these hopefully two new additions we can really do that this year um you know I'm going to be in touch with Jim I know Jim had mentioned some he kind of wanted I don't want to be a marketing arm for the town but he also had mentioned um you know a little bit of coverage of news events around town too and I think we can do that going to have if if we get people we're going to have the staff to do it and that's going back to my rote so I'd be excited to do that and obviously Valerie can help if she wants to all of this so um that's all I have on my notes you had some things in your report that you wanted response Renee probably remembers them better than I do but they were because they were very technical would you like people to talk about that now well yeah that's kind of what I just I did just um update you on that that was the high def channels and that was the um the first thing yeah please um I can speak to that to the uh HD channel um you know I was reviewing the contract and it might um behoove us to kind of take a look at that language I don't remember what page it's on but I can I can pull the uh the contract and and take a look at it um my my thought on it um is that maybe the uh issuing authority and I believe that would be either Jim or the select board draft a letter to to Charter that uh requests uh information about launching the HD channel my understanding is that there may and I don't know this for sure but there may be a cost involved and that's the cost for the encoders the switch over um Charter's going to have their hands out for for this I I can imagine a one-time cost to to launch this um that's what other cable companies have done in Fall River it cost it cost the town um $330,000 to launch the channel um we have to make a really strong case for why that's going to make a big difference I would guess and we may not want it we at that point if it's $30,000 out of John's budget we may say Hey you know are we better off putting that $30,000 into streaming on Facebook or you know there other there other ways to look at this I think and so I'm not saying that we we go ahead and pull a trigger on this but I do think some sort of exploratory letter to find out what's involved who knows they may come back and say you know we're starting to do this across the board in other towns so it's not going to be an issue I mean the other question is and John was alluding to um it does say the language in the contract does say that we'd have to give up a channel we'd have to to give up either um either the public access Channel or the municipal access or the educational access Channel standard definition um which would mean as John said combining programming on the HD channel we'll still have three channels it's just one of them will will look good so I would have questions to just talk about the process because you have a lot of ifs Maybe sort of we still need to explore it with a formal letter which I think you would probably want a little bit more detail if that was you know yeah I mean you're hearing all the reasons one maybe not but I'm sure Jim could follow up but it'd be nice to touch base I think it's a good idea to have it with the schools too because of the school sports be a little better definition and and uh hopefully you know they I can't see him charging us a lot of money cuz I think it's going to keep the viewership up when everybody's diving over to uh streaming programming might help them but um yeah we'll see what we can find out so that so that's something John that you could maybe just keep a ongoing conversation with Jim to say this is the opening sentence or two maybe we draft a letter um ex you like I said um why you do it how how we think to approach it you explore it and stuff like that and bring that back to the committee at some future date so that we I think there's a there's many steps and you need to sort of spell out but once you get Jim har I think that's good to work with Jim he's pretty tuned in to what's yeah like he said send a letter because look what happened when we needed the equipment nothing happened until we called in a service call and sent a letter so yeah and we we've had such a um a delayed response from them that maybe more formal it could be at the beginning the more it will uh get a response but if if people feel that this is a good way to go then I think we should make that one of the key things that John will work on for the coming year you had a couple of other questions and we need people to talk about the letter to support this young woman that you would like to hire with existing funds this is just a summer employment correct because you submitted a letter and I looked at it and and put it into the distribution the email distribution so I think if you looked at your email you have the letter I have a copy if you if you don't if you haven't read it John maybe you could read it yeah so um so finish up the questions that you want so the so the summer hire should be easy According to Jim I sent over the information today okay a letter from you folks won't hurt but it seems like it's already cuz it's like hiring another student like when we hire the part the kids it's it's not okay will you we can move on this and then if you have any other questions report I want to give people a chance to sort of tell you what they think you should be doing this coming year well yeah can we approve the summer higher and can we approve the has everyone had a chance to see this letter yes motion to approve to accept it as make a motion to accept the letter making a motion to accept the letter yes thank you second second all in favor you have our approval thank you we can sign it and include it in all the inform information you're going to uh I mean we can sign it you've already signed it so why don't you send it and we can just say the board has uh board support yep and you thank you okay any other the other I don't know if you need a motion for this but just to allow me to well I already did it this afternoon but um but we got you I don't think we have to cuz you already said I could hire a parttime person so I don't think there's anything here that has to be done looked at candidates you have gone down the road on this and you're feeling like you have a really strong candidate if you get approval to for the position y okay so how many hours a week is this person it can't the most can be is 19 they can't work more than 19 I'm just have a question how is the um extra help for meetings going to be handled so the parttime part of the job description for the part-time person is to be your backup suppose that person isn't available which has happened um I I'd like a list the person that we haven't the person we haven't hired yet part of the job description is to be your backup when you can't make it I suppose that person's not we've had we've gone it doesn't hurt to have a list of people on call well we have the kids we'll see what happens this is F this is going to be a salary person if he skips meetings we'll have to replace them okay and we can't have someone on board saying no I don't want to I don't want to do it kids are different I mean and that probably is a lot of pre- scheduling early you know not just somebody okay this week I need Wednesday and next week it's you since you have two permanent people on staff that are responsible for this they need to work that out ahead of time absolutely how is this person going to find out about me and I'll say I'm not available or we have a double double meeting or how is that going to work you're going to have this person's contact information you come you book them like you do the kids well I would think you would sit down and have some Calenders exactly what I was going to say why don't you guys set up a a Google Calendar that has all the meetings we don't always find out you know it's the the post what is it 48 hours hours yeah yeah sometimes it's last minute but I would suggest you know or recommend that maybe you guys share a Google Calendar that you can put all the information posted on the town clerk so that's what I always tell people to go to that to keep a head heads up of what's Happening yep probably is a good thing to you know once you get this position filled to have people sit down and go through the steps of how that how it's actually going to work cuz it's a miraculous thing have you and valer in a new yeah it's all about communication big expectations for this MH we'll all be sitting watching good yeah good maybe in high up someday any other questions go ahead you think you're going to have a hard time finding someone's for this position or no no no that's good then no would you like to talk more about the things you said is your experience the think you're hoping to do that hasn't been done because I think it's really important at the beginning to say this is what I'm shooting to accomplish that we haven't done and then people can come back to you at another time and say yeah so the like a baseline yeah um well again it's just to grow the public Channel and I think there's a lot out there to do it um we have a new show coming I'm going to wait until well if my summer person gets HED we can there's a couple of intros she I'm going to have her film and show could be done the show's done I just need some intros film so hopefully you'll see a brand new show next week it's about events around the town we're not seeing complaints nobody is filling out complaints like they used to I think so it's probably time to remind people you're there and YouTube and all of that especially when you're looking at new things anybody else have any other comments on things that John might be thinking about as he goes into to a new year it's a different time we have a contract it's a 10year contract we've accomplished a you know one big step of stability but there has to be people have to pay attention I don't know if we get it but every quarter or so we should get a a head count see if the subscribers going down up stabilizing yeah we should ask for that next time we do communication been asking but I don't think it's very up to date so I think that's really important John can you report to the yeah we get a we get a yearly but I'll see if we can do better we were a little over 4,000 but that number hasn't varied very much in the last few years maybe you know we've lost a couple 37 38 yeah I'm wondering if it goes up with the sum of people though it used to I don't close normal time of the year 38 37 I haven't seen that number did you see it posted somewhere they had mention it about a year ago okay everything I've seen is WR okay let's let's get that number for people so they can see that has nothing to do with the fact that so many people now know that you can go on YouTube which isn't part of the subscriber count you know and but since the subscribers are paying a fee maybe it makes sense to have some direct contact with them in some way see I mean you know it's a it's a business they they maybe want to to know that they a lot of people are dropping the uh cable they'll stay with the internet for streaming yeah so they're losing the gate is still keeping the telephone and the internet but they're losing a lot of Nationwide think last year was like 2 and a half million subscribers Comcast Cox total bailed out but they stay with streaming in the internet so they're not losing they'll just jack up the inter internet that's that's coming beginning his new year and what is he going to do with that would be my question how are you going to how you going be in a market that's losing customer share but you still are around for 10 years because you really don't want to make doing videos that nobody's looking at that you want people to realize that that it's there and I'm not sure how that's you know what your plans are for that so I think that should be there another thing CH told by one of the technicians that doing some work at the house they're doing away with the boxes it's going to be all streaming Char the regular cable boxes are going to be pass it's all going to be a little box about this big right a streaming box you'll stream all your channels through streaming huh and I some people W already have Al so I know that there was um an attempt by the state organization to find out if these local um community community tele Community cable organizations could find a way to get money from streaming because that their their earned income is really from subscri right because we get paid by customers that have cable we start losing that we start losing money you know maybe Penny or two I don't know how much it is per month they take out it's on part of your bill and uh that's how we got on well it's a it's a conversation that this committee should look at at one point in time because there's a wonderful security of having a 10year contract feel very good about that but but what are so do people already have a West they just streaming the signals in it's like a YouTube TV channel similar to that where all your cable once you it's cable on a streaming device and no box maybe you can encourage Charter to come talk yeah I'll tell him with his cookies yeah I do know that Charter uh is available on on certain devices like I could stream Charter yeah right here yeah ret TV oh okay well with Recreation or yeah it's um oh that's probably around in the gym maybe you have to go around the back thank you y yeah because you can stream the TV yep right here on your phone but if they're getting rid of but streaming is not cable streaming doesn't have the government channels what not no doesn't have the government channels so we don't we don't get a cut of that yeah that's what we need to keep an eye on the counts to see if it's going down because it affects our overall budget I think these things and there is talk at the legislative level to do that there's a bill that's that's floating around about that specifically because obviously um the the peg stations um public education and government stations see that they're losing the revenue over the course of the year so I think it's a very important topic for this committee and I and we did get a letter last year and they asked us to sign on we're not officially a member of the Massachusetts cable Association I've encouraged John to think about it but it's one more thing to think about so it could you could they are as a advocacy group for local cable of local community TVs pushing on that and I would guess that it's not going to go very far very fast but it still could be important and we I have the letter in the file somewhere that they sent out they sent it to Jim they didn't send it um to you which is probably because you're not an official member but they did ask for the support from Westport and and we gave that support yeah yeah we did so okay there's a couple of other things um and I'm sure John will keep everybody updated on how he his response from personnel and you know and I think it's great that you've done that work this summer and and uh we'll make it happen um the office at Valery has occupied um I have encourage John and Valerie to think about as public access because it's much harder to reach John at the school and there when I first moved here there were people being trained to use video cameras we talked last year a lot about volunteers but that's an easy place for people to come in ask questions but it's also been the only place you've had to store everything that you weren't using and John has told me that a lot of that is being cleaned out we got rid of a lot yeah and I I think we should look forward to that being um because I know your hours you're not here 9 to5 but there's really no way for people to personally be in touch unless we put information on the door because once once you come to that door you don't know when you can reach somebody or how so there's cleaning the room and making it accessible for people so one thing I didn't know until we cleaned out the room a month ago is that the planning board they store is it the planning board who stores things in there so yeah they have file cabinets in there so you've so there is some there's some stuff in there that's not ours so you got to keep that in mind if you want the public going in there that have a representative planning board if if that space you know is is something that you can train people and you want to use it I think there should be no my concern is there's file cabinets with files in there and you're just going to have people I think they're probably locked or I mean I don't know who okay well I just haven't seen opportunities for the community to train for the camera as I saw when we first moved to town so y I think if you have a more accessible space that was my comment but right now it's still in limbo y right okay true um John I asked you to talk to this cable Advisory board about how you see their role it is clearly an Advisory Board and as we learned um a meeting or two ago we have assigned seats we have the selectman who is a voting member planning board school committee Jason apologized we couldn't be here so and then the rest of the membership is made of of citizens but they all are involved in what you're doing but you as a GU that's been here for a long time and trying to keep a program strong with all of the issues you've heard about um probably should remind the board of how you see them being valuable to your work and Valerie's work and the community because that's at the bottom line of it all right no no I'm very appr right no we're very appreciative to have people on the Sport and Rene's got 30 years plus probably in this and Donald always knows what's going on in town and with the members from the other boards um it's just it's the support for people that can give support it's the ideas from people the the residents that are on this board so just input from all of you is um both the input from all of you and just advice is what helps me out a lot too so just keep that coming I think and any ideas let valer and I know if you're interested in doing anything or what you want to see or how we can make make the whole department better just reach out to all of us so I think it's feedback feedback is good negative feedback is good as well this goes out to the broader Community because you are recording it so I think you can you know applaud anybody who'd like to come in and and give you support but this has been a really important group of uh contributors to the fut definitely yep yeah okay anything more that people think you shouldn't be doing this is your time or forever keep your um we as members of a town committee serve um at the approval of the selectman but for a year so everyone is up to uh get back and and a lot of the um reup what the word is but not this committee now like I said there are three people who are specifically designated by planning select board and um school school committee and um the rest all have to make I don't know whether you have to be reappointed or not but but um I would assume so but everybody else has to I am going to step off the board I've got a couple of the things that are really pressing right now and I feel a great sense of accom lishment with getting that contract signed so you know go on a high if that's sort of a good way to to do things so that means that a schedule for the coming months um and election of officers needs to take place it can take place tonight or it can take place after people all decide about being reappointed and I leave that up to you um to decide you can have a discussion about it you can't really put the offices on until the new new appointment to see who's who comes back you'd only be putting it on and it could change next month so you want to change it after everybody's after the yeah re-ups okay well yeah so that that's what I mean people have to know that you're saying get the what I generally do on my committees is I ask everybody if they want to stay on yeah and you could just send a letter or somebody could send a letter covering everybody that's already been on a committee we don't have to send individually um especially when you got to selectman rep cuz we can attest that everybody said that okay so you just ask raise your hand or whatever if they want to stay on uh Bob and I have to run it by our boards Jason will have to run it by his school committee to make sure they want to leave him on as the rep okay I think he was just appointed I think so that's yeah I think he was just was yeah he's just brand new yeah it's just the formality because you're representing the board they have to uh you know give their import vote for you okay well yeah um that means we have one opening and I think it's important to consider uh we did have an applicant to the seat but um uh you know what do you need in the way of expertise so I think you know that might be a conversation um Carrie kuna did express interest in the committee and she has demonstrated a lot of interest in Communications she's been very involved in helping people understand a little bit more what's going on but I haven't talked to her in depth about this committee but I think the committee will will have an opening I'm happy to write a letter with the fact that people are um continuing if you you have mentioned you wanted to continue right you want to continue Renee I don't know if you're not continuing I don't know if I'm just just going to say we're going to make you heard a lot of stor when when is your term up now July we all done we're all done so this is your last meeting yes okay yes that's why we okay I just wanted clar just wanted clarification on that yeah I I I have few other things that I have not paid attention to for a while um but it's always really nice to go out on a high and I think that it's been a fantastic experience to go through this contract renewal process you all have made it you know B they worked really hard to get us to say the right words so Irene uh it's with your leadership and I want to thank you for your time and your effort in keeping control of this this amazing expence unknown unknown world and I really got involved in this because I really like to be in front of the camera it's uh it's very exciting to talk to people and know what's going so I have ideas about doing that but I think um and that's why I asked John tonight to talk about the future I think it's really important to think about what he going to do with this in a small town it's we said so beautifully in the contract this is so important now it's time to show that but it's only shown through the creative people behind the camera you can't you know you can't tell people this is a great thing because people like Don will come in and say but we're losing money and I've heard that all my life it doesn't matter you know this is a nonprofit organization and it's not here to do anything but service so let's you know make sure the service is what the community wants there's a lot of good ideas that have been around the table so I hope that people like you that really understand the purposes um maybe we'll step up and keep with going and one of the nice things about the situation we're in is is that we actually in the cable fund we actually have money so when're you know we have the ability to to do things so it's it's uh and and in the town meeting you know increase the budget so you know I think I think all of that's to the good yeah I I I mean you couldn't see something that has possibilities as much as this lot more money in the bank and um I was reelected to the planning board so once we reorganize I'm sure I will be appointed again yeah because because we the planning board like the board of Selectmen have standing participation in different committees and so I would if I reup for it it'll happen you know so I I will continue so there's the three three required the the three required and then the citizens Representatives can be how how many how many is the board um it's the it' be 1 two 3 four I think a total was seven because we when uh car applied there was no seat um so that we are over so you're you're not going to be on the board you're just to totally and I I think it's it's good to have somebody new but I think it's really important that we know why what what you're trying to do and how you can get support for that and it gets posted on the town um the openings get posted on the town uh website and I think the select board always has that in the bottom of their agenda yeah but I think the word will get out you can put it on your own website too but if you know and that's why I think I wanted to talk about tonight we I can send a letter saying people want to reup but I think if you know the kind of person not the kind of person but the talents or the skills or the resources we're really wonderfully equipped to deal with the contract what are we going to deal with yeah in the next yeah I I mean once we switch over we got the contract done you don't even have to meet monthly if it's going to take a lot of people schedules it could be B monthly or quarterly unless we have something come up exactly but this way you don't burn every every body out and we stay fresh I think we said like every other month that's how we used to do it yeah it was either every other month or quarterly so all right we wish you well and we'll have we'll have a tough time filling your spot not moving I'm just we're going to have all our meetings at Bayside so you can be jealous I second that I appreciate the opportunity I I would suggest that uh a date for another meeting is proposed tonight so people have a sense at that and then reappointments can take place with the like you said of a letter correct yeah I mean yeah we'll all have to get sworn in again so if we're going to do it any time I would suggest probably toward the end of July and let's see if that person you suggested uh goes for us so we'll be a full committee again okay is there anybody that wants to be chair though Rene um my only I mean I would be chair my only issue with with with that aspect of it is and maybe someone can help me with it is developing the agenda and I can certainly yeah we can help you with it just send it an email it's not a real big deal she set and setting the meetings cuz quite often I'm all over the place I'll provide you with two free lessons Irene articulates more than most committees as long as the public has an idea of what we're going over you know uh you know you know it's it's covered yeah yeah it it it has been John's report Valerie's report and then what is the issue that needs to be looked at and I think we reducing the number of meetings has also helped well we couldn't do that when we were pushing against this contract and the signature and all of that we had to kind of stay on task but really Johnson the lead on that of what do you think the things are that the cable Advisory Board needs to look at help there's this is not a hiring or firing committee this is a committee that can give advice to get to where you want to go now if somebody says to you I can't hear on these microphones or or I really don't see anything of interest when I turn on table or I can't I don't know what to do um what the the woman that applied um before there was an opening is very interested in reaching out fine and she connecting and she talked with John um I don't know you also have had you know you had a few other people so it's really what would make the right thing but we can't submit the people that are here you still can have a meeting and move ahead absolutely and I think somebody should make a motion there was an offer on the floor and I think I to make Rene chair even if he has at least temporary to fill in for you second there you go and and Renee I I will be glad to work with you yeah just send that out we'll all throw a picture at some stuff we just can't debate anything but if you're sending out items for an agenda we could send it back and whoever somebody can help you maybe that's that's the way to do it right just to have the whole Comm kind of contribute their thoughts yeah I through Ros and and our secretary is wonderful she is amazing I know she is very good yeah she's the best thank you Sher you need to take the vote on that I was going to say all right can we have a motion to we made the motion Bob second we just got to vote on it all in favor there you go super duper okay and Sharon you are going to continue as secretary that email I don't you have to be elected you're just God given uh she just made a motion on the on the chair and approved yeah to approve me to I don't believe so no cuz you're kind of at will aren't you it's not a contract or anything right no well yeah I don't think so it's if you left there would be an issue but if you're staying on shouldn't be I think it's a different you don't expire at the end of the month or anything all right okay is there any other business to come before this August group not motion to adjourn second a second all in favor all right thank you there you go thank you