##VIDEO ID:lE68EtXQOuE## give it a thumbs up good okay call to order I'd like to welcome everybody to the cable Advisory board for Wednesday September 11th 2024 um Pledge of Allegiance Pledge United stes of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty justice so thank you all for joining us tonight and um bear with me because it's my first meeting as chair so if uh the protocols are wrong or if you see me misstep just uh just tag me and I'll try to fix where what I what I did wrong um so um first item on the agenda is the review and approval of the minutes from June 12th of 2024 um if you've had a chance to look at those um maybe give me a motion to approve those I'll move all in favor I okay I'm abstaining I wasn't here okay um second did you say joh second yeah yeah um next on the agenda is Introduction to of Carrie COA welcome Ken than you um I know you sat in on a couple of the previous meetings but maybe you can just for the edification of the public maybe just you know tell us a little bit about yourself and what you bring to the board sure um well I'm a mom nothing special about me I bring I'm trying to merge social media into the Mex cuz we've got to stay in the future um and we're working on it we haven't I haven't figured it out yet getting close and that's what I bring to the board okay yeah I mean we we discussed a few times how important social media is to to awareness public awareness out in the community and I think that's something that we really want to Foster in in West Court um given the fact that people are all over the place I think that's a good way to connect with people so um and having it in one department so every Department isn't posting and it's all over the place we need to have it nice and neat yeah yeah I think that's great well thank you um old business I that's on the agenda I don't know really what there is in terms of old business to discuss um I guess the only old business uh I can come up with that we' spoke about before is that I've um still haven't heard back from our friends at Spectrum about getting a feed into the new building to monitor the channels directly and I can monitor them on the new server but I will I want a feed into the building cuz that by contract they're supposed to provide us one and the feed itself still going into the old building so per usual they don't reply back when I ask for this and it's been months on that right yeah it doesn't have any effect on our day-to-day operation but it's it's they're legally required to give us that and I think they just they haven't said it but they're probably saying well we are feeding a school a vacant school so right didn't we discuss I think Steve I think we talked about pulling a ticket or something like that did you do that I did do that I called them I've reached out to them they probably answered the ticket with some questions I forget it's been so long before the summer and um I believe I did answer a reply back to them and haven't heard from that okay yep I mean if we have to escalate it to the board sending a letter I mean I would say we do so you know the select board I mean pushing it okay I don't I don't think we need a motion on that part because I think we probably all support it but yeah let's stay on them and keep things going yeah at least maybe try to pull another ticket and you know try to get somebody on the phone from them mhm okay I think that's it for okay whole business servers working okay and I love yeah I love it um Valerie's got the hang of it now she's um you know she's a lot better than she was at the beginning and um it's just great just the ease of it I can do it from home and with in seconds cuz it's all IP based and uploading new content to it it's it's so much better than the old version we had I'm very happy with that purchase okay um next on the agenda is director's report and discussion okay let's see all right so um the summer was really busy and um it was a fun summer uh we hired at from uh this board approve the hiring of David bdan and he's back there if he wants to wave he's um he's fills in when Valerie can't do meetings but his real talent is in filming um if you've seen any of the Drone photography that we've done this summer it's been all his work out there he's a pro he's certified in that he's got his drone license and um he's done some events and now we're going to get him on to doing um you know more projects for the channel both independently and with me at at times so he's been a great asset so far so so far so good um I'm glad we hired him um if you've seen the hey Westport show uh my former student tayor Perry's the host and also the producer on it she's um she's just here for the summer I lose her in October which is going to be tough because she goes to college in New York she um she's kind of taking ownership of this uh this show we do four stories we've been doing four stories per episode um about things out in town and um she's good writer she's great on camera and like I said she takes ownership she'll text me 10:00 at night with ideas for things and follows up is always on time so that was another good good hire having her uh let's see so uh um just to recap uh this board did approve I believe it was June our June meeting um a little bit of a job description change for me where I wasn't teaching my one high school class anymore so effective this September they have a building sub as of now teaching that that one class I've given them my all my curriculum all my uh Google Classroom from the previous years and um he seems to love it he teaches other things throughout the day and uh I'm there to help them with things I'm showing the kids how to work all the equipment so I still have a my foot in there it's just not the day-to-day in the classroom every hour you know monitor monitoring the kids so I think I still have a pretty good influence for that um and last it's on your agenda later so I'll wait for I was going to talk about the HD channels um I go back and forth on that but we can we can wait until that comes up um one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking about programming and I don't know if this board would find it helpful like when you're producing programming and you're getting it out there of maybe sending a link to us you know and if that you know if you have something that sure you might want us to watch or whatever yeah we're producing a lot so you're going to get a lot of emails from me at the end of the week I can send a link of all the yeah that might yep I I'll do that I mean I get so much junk mail in my email box it'd be actually good to get something that that we can watch you know I have a question how are you which channel the HD how are you going to it's going to be on YouTube links [Music] um the HD discussion is that what you you're asking about what the link he went sent oh the link links would be YouTube right yes if YouTube yeah that way everybody can kind of click and I I mean I just figured if he's producing things and we we can at least emails them to me so I've seen them yeah so you get you get them anyway right yeah now are you posting them on I share them on social media great so with that too I know we have Carrie her expertise on Facebook I've never had Facebook so I'm kind of like I'll oversee it but I'll let her like handle the Reigns on that along with David we've spoke about it too about having Facebook thing that as the board has been requesting so obviously I'll oversee it but I'll let you guys you know bounce all your ideas off me and I'll bounce ideas off you and we'll get that up there yeah just we need to edit because the tension span is so much different than TV y it's going to be quicker quick yeah yep and that's my report okay um so does that include FY 25 budget and Staffing or is that our next uh well it included the Staffing um the budget the budget I we haven't um what month are we in September I should be hearing from Jim hartnet with a request very soon we had a department head meeting today he didn't mention um the budget for the next budget so um I don't have any idea of that of what it's going to be but he did say um two and two for the uh raises for the staff and the staffins Taylor and David that I spoke about and Carry On The Board increases yeah he's saying around town that's what it's going to so that would affect um and your funding comes in usually in April right that's was it March I think the last uh I think Nicole told me March was the first check I can get I may take a minute to have to find an answer but um a lot of think you sent us a breakdown of monies that are in the account and you're pretty solvent right yeah so she didn't tell me the date on uh June 17th she said I asked ask um how much was the first payment from Spectrum on this new contract and they had paid us 248,000 okay and that included capital and operating well our capital is now is it 30 or 40 a year she didn't break it down yeah um um she just sent the figures I didn't yeah either back on my emails but it's either 30 or 40,000 um Capital per year for 10 years yeah yeah I don't have that I don't have that breakdown here okay so there's money in the bank I guess is yeah yeah and there's more there's a lot more than that because I never go over I never go over okay so so the next item on the agenda is the discussion of the new cable contract or not so new now but uh and the request for the HD channel um and I em emailed everybody the language specifically related to that unfortunately we weren't able to print it out tonight so I don't know if you all had a chance to look at it online but I I was going to you know defer to to John to really discuss I have mixed feelings on this and I I'll talk about them after everybody else kind of weighs in but um so I'm the same I was all for it at first but given up so what it is if you folks forgot right now we do we broadcast three standard def channels we have the option of broadcasting in high def on one channel but that will cost us an SD channel so we'll go from three channels to two John I got a question yeah on that channel was was2 or how come sometimes there Worcester on there you'll see a broadcast it'll be something about Worcester do they just flip it over somehow recently I noticed it a couple of times you flip it you know you go the two local actors like the third one something has all stuff about W no idea how that you know sporadically it's dealing with stuff about W like a b what what channel number 19 that's 192 192 have you seen that this spring and summer yeah the other two channels normally you know like the first one is Public Access you know the meetings like all lot usually second one is sports yeah and the third one I noticed a couple of times what a meeting going on recently though like yeah this summer in the spring you've seen for a couple of years that way so so actual programming yeah what the programming is that part of it'll have like a Mee wer or so when I took over the public channel from Valerie beginning of the summer I guess yeah June I stopped playing a lot of her she would be playing state things from the State House non Westport related things so I'm wondering if that's what you see this was like a what the meeting yeah that's headlight will be wor or something you know I don't wow I don't know that that's where mix or you know dead air or something that's yeah so when we our dead air goes right our dead air goes right to aest bullettin board so that's interesting if you can just tell me that if you ever catch that just write down the day and time cuz I if I wanted to play something for I wouldn't know how to do it so that's something from the headend uh about a week ago wait a it was what's just something you know on the bar on the top yeah some kind of a meeting it was like a sage meeting but it wasn't you know local wow that this is It's news to me I I don't know how that's probably a city hall meeting you know like I mean a counil or something I would imagine something in their head end they may have switched over and it could have been a a oneoff but you've seen it more than once yeah more than one I me the last couple of years I don't look at it that much flip that one over I just going through it yeah yeah that's I thought maybe we had lost like you said Channel or something I thought maybe we yeah we haven't we haven't pulled the trigger on that yet and I I think so you say from here to the server property Oxford right from Westport and back here right it's not a direct feed so it could be some something going on with their feeding out of what stuff yeah I'll call a head in tomorrow yeah unless and see what they yeah they can think about if they can explain why this happened it's not all the time it's just just hit it maybe once or twice where yeah cuz every time I watch it from the server I see what should be on there Westport content all right if you if you see it again just write a note of the day and time and that way I have something to send to the Head end right all right thanks for that do you have a contact over at the headend I do yeah I wonder if they could help facilitate the the Ser the service call for you he might he might you know just explain you know that that you need the connectivity at the new high school I mean usually if you deal with the guys that you work with all the time they might have a better chance than the guy in New York trying to expedite done you know by I some Perry's bakery or something like so getting back to the high def thing um I've gone back and forth and I this is one I kind of want to defer to the board and see how many like what you all think about losing a channel in favor of gaining a high def Channel keeping in mind this is now a new public Channel we have now since David and I kind of taken over it's not what used to be on previously so you're going to see a lot of Westport stuff um there's some days I say be great to have high death and then the next day I say right the next day I say like it I mean I thought it would be good for sports and whatnot I do too but if we're going to be we're going to be able to spread it out I mean there is some Seasons where you have two sports at once to so um I mean if you want to hold off on it no I guess we can but it doesn't seem overly excited plus there was some equipment we needed too right to the the proper broadcast yeah I'm not sure if the Drake encoders can that's also in one of the my Spectrum emails to them as well can we just find out if there's a deadline that they need to know by or if we can keep it open-ended so in the what Rene sent from the contract um we have to make that decision by lenes shall make all subsequent annual uh C ass no that's something different I apologize NOP that has nothing to do with the it was highlighted so I thought it was part of this doesn't sound like we're ready to take action now anyway so if it was we probably stay in limbo for now yeah especially if we need more equipment know find out that I'm trying to find out that answer if we didn't need more equipment would that change your thoughts or would so we need more if we didn't if they just said what you have if they said what you have Works how would you feel if we if we think we have enough to do it I don't want to see myself in selectman meetings in highs here you know so but some of our programs so some of our programs like basketball I mean you can't the 1978 vhs's sometimes so I you know I think it'd be better the kids but again if we're not ready to rock that's how I think too yeah so part of the issue that I that I saw that kind of bothered me a little bit was in to kind of expand on what John said about losing a channel you're technically you're not really you're losing an SD Channel you're losing a channel but you're gaining the HD channel which will come most likely at a cost the Spectrum Infinity they're going to charge for that I think $2,000 or something a while back it's probably going to be closer to 30 wow and that's what and I only know this because that's what the charge is it's actually written in Fall River's cable license and we're kind of right now wavering whether or not well two things whether or not that cost is worth the end result um because really what can you do with $30,000 I mean I know Westport can do a lot with $30,000 in terms of programming in terms of Staffing in terms of more meetings in terms of having that buffer for the long term when people are dropping cable TV I mean what's nice about your budget is that it revolves and end of the year it doesn't disappear um so over the course of 10 years you know that that $30,000 may be valuable and especially with your push to to do social media and to do you know getting the the the programming out on on Facebook I mean the reality is how many people are actually sitting down and watching cable TV these days in in West a couple meetings ago I was talking about what technician was doing some work at the house and they had that free thing they did check everything he said they're going to be getting rid of the next two three years all the boxes it's all going to be streaming you have a little box on the size of your phone right it's going to be a cable box all streaming well there's our answer if they don't know of streaming and familiar with it they don't have problem yeah and you'll see when when John sends the links out you do you post everything in YouTube in HD right yes so you'll see if you click on the link you're going to be able to watch it on HD through your computer through your Apple TV or your smart TV like what now CH is doing they giving you Maxs and the parl plus when you have to stream it it's included in your package it's not part of the cable package yeah they sawed about a month ago well three months ago Max and last week they came out with Paramount plus yep yeah I did see that um so that that's my thought on it I'm just wondering whether not that that cost and there will be a cost and it may not be exactly $30,000 but knowing Spectrum they're they're probably it's going to it's going to be expensive that figure sounds familiar when we first had the yeah so cont um and and obviously you know with kind of cable TV changing the landscape I just wonder if that is money well spent I believe it is you want the HD I don't I do want the HD you do for the for the sports and for it'll be my well not necessarily for the sports I like um the Westport show he I think just for entertainment cuz I I enjoy watching the waves and I want to see all of that I want to see what she's talking about and so do you watch most of your programming on cable on cable TV I don't have cable I stream you stream so you don't watch it on cable TV correct okay so that's the distinction though Carrie is that you know he can still do HD programming and he can still provide that to people on Facebook or or YouTube or any streaming service really but the whole cable TV HD channel is specific to Cable subscribers MH so people with a cable box will go to a channel and instead of it looking like you know 1960s you know 4x3 blurry um you know television that we remember when we were kids it'll look like you know today's you know when you walk in the Best Buy and you see all of the beautiful images well now most of your cable chart is all high definition right all your channels are high definition now well all of them except Westport Community television except Westport right and that's that's the issue that's that's what I'm driving at is that you know $30,000 will buy Westport an HD channel on Charter On Spectrum well who's going be no say five years who's going to be watching it's all going to be streaming that's so wasting 30 grand yeah it's the same thing with streaming you can get the lower Def and the higher def it's on the internet it doesn't automatically go to a high def right right I mean be useful for internet as well to have better the last two weeks CH has done something because most programming now especially watching on cable it's almost like 3D in the last two weeks their signal was going almost the real 4K high definition yeah and so believe iwi I can't can't believe this it's really almost like a 3D picture the last two weeks they've done something with their signal yeah they they had a email that they going to be doing maintenance between 2 and 3 in the morning or 4 in the morning you might lose your signal yeah and I guess they were upgrading their system in in West I mean and you can see even in terms of the technology of what's being produced and you know in terms of production I mean they're already pushing 5K 8K television sets you know to to upgrade the picture even un more cheap yeah it's it's Cly a change from what it used to be so I mean I I don't know what this board feels in terms of you know maybe it's a matter of just you know kind of holding off on this for now and seeing you know there's nothing that says we have to do it in terms of uh um you know moving forward on on the actual cable TV HD end of it I think as long as you have equipment that you can produce all of the programming and HD like are these cameras all in throughout they're all HD no I mean that might be something that that that $30,000 could buy you know possibly when they come out with the new little boxes it might be all streaming so it's going to be HD anyhow we might get HD for free you look at it because they're going to be forced to send a signal as an HD signal to the new boxes yeah I mean what's crazy to me these phones actually have HD now so and you can shoot HD video with your with your iPhone so I mean you know that might be in your going jumping back to your to your budget and Staffing and you might need to like assess the equipment that's already out there in the select board you know meeting room and all of this equipment wherever wherever meetings are held I know the historical um board they they're in the basement right of the they're in here they're they're yeah in this room yep okay they were here last night okay cuz they used to be they used to be in the basement of of the we took all that out okay John we you new equipment like a cams and all is that all HD compatible it is it's only HD all the stuff is yep right but the robotics here are not no yeah that's something that you might want to start upgrading and I think what you'll find is if you even if you start upgrading these cameras and all the cameras throughout the the town that the picture quality is going to improve even on the SD channels I think they're better the cameras now are better in low light they're better resolution anyway so I think it's might be worth looking into and maybe coming back to the board with you know with a quote or something quote yeah sure I mean you guys think that might be worthwhile to look at yeah I mean does make S to do the HD we don't have it all in place so let's find out what we need to get up to snu yeah see I I hadn't real I agree I hadn't realized that the the cameras in these rooms are even HD so why even go down the road of looking at an HD channel if you can't do the meetings I mean I understand the schools you can do your Sports Programming and with all the all the portable stuff is high yeah where where um does the school committee meet at at the high school yeah they meet in a high school auditorium and that is HD they don't look HD I don't I don't know if they are now I didn't buy those those came with the building okay so I don't I don't know the high school auditori though is dark so they could be HD but just CU it's such low light in there and low light on the stage you're not getting the true effect of it I mean we can have that conversation offline and and talk about that but okay um so I mean that I think if you know if there's no movement on that particular item in terms of HD we just P for now yeah and you know have John come back to the board and make a wish list of maybe upgrades and that's part of the problem is that this technology changes like so fast and when was the last time the stuff was upgraded these cameras are five six years old was before Co right before Co so five going on six I went by fast t to the SL probably the newest yeah I mean May Maybe I'm Wrong maybe there is maybe they are HD compatible I have the paperwork go through the inventory see yeah I have the paperwork and I have all the quotes from everything we can help I can help you with that I can help you too if you need me so okay um I'm just wondering does anybody else have anything else to discuss is there any new business do you guys have any concerns for for John or for no but maybe we could put on on the bottom of the broadcast tag or if you want to announce it just the um the email address in case anybody wants to send us problems or maybe somebody knows dates I sold my box FR when they did the upgrades and and I haven't got the new box yet so um but I saw some wora mixed in but I don't recall how long ago it was cuz I DVR a lot of stuff and watch it but there was a mix but I'm not sure if it was before June or Ju okay that blows my mind you want put the the email out there so people know now the cable access what is that Gmail or something uh or put it at the tagline on the broadcast so people can get a hold of us okay it's access well if you go to the town website cable to website too but we're trying to promote cable so people keep their subscriptions yeah absolutely I mean you know I'm probably as guilty as anyone I'm running around I have a new grandson I have so much stuff so you know I'm going to try to make it a point of when I'm sitting in front of the television to just grab the remote and just every once in a while check the channels and I think that that's probably good advice for all of us if we can do that the the only other thing I would bring up as far as business before we close out do we plan on doing any hybrid in the winter or or is it some folks don't want that capability I'm thinking as we go to bad weather and everything the options there that we might want to consider it maybe that's why a couple people couldn't make it hybrid meetings so we the hyrid all all uh resom like in January February or something yeah we can do that in the town hall and through this we we can do it in these in these two rooms an option this way you don't have to cancel the meeting people can play around it they're in their own house yeah I I concur because you know I'm going actually going out for surgery next week um so yeah we don't want you to have an excuse the meeting you can do it from the hospital video well the internet advisory meetings are still going and they're always remote all right so so it's just something to think about I'm sure we can get another meeting in before the the nasty weather but jary February March yeah during the nasty months ideally it would be great to have all the meetings hybrid so people could attend from home that was one of my goals yeah I agree I mean everybody is capable you have a computer at home that you can use to jump on on use Q cards at home though we can all right there you go John do they recall you have the facilities to record the meeting if it goes uh you know video conference what type yeah yep yeah you can do that right on the computer no we the meeting they have the facility to call the meeting well records you know I can do now yeah yeah yeah I think you mean remotely if we do no if you do remotely do it yes have a recording of the whole meeting yes and it still gets posted online yeah yeah and you can still take that file and put it on the channels so yep that that's actually a good make that as a goal as a rest that up it should be the only thing on your mind healing how we can do hybrid meetings I I don't think we need a motion for that right we just go it's the consensus okay everybody kind of agrees it's a good option okay so I don't know if we want to keep the next meeting date open or you know what you guys maybe I mean we didn't even have anything super critical except for the HD so why don't we uh leave it open you can give us an email when something exciting comes up maybe after John gets the inventory if we have to have a meeting to go over the equipment if anybody's confused or whatever okay so sounds good to me all right you have anything else anything else I'll make a motion anything else on the agenda no you make a motion in the meeting okay second it all in favor there you go thank you all