Greater Lowell Tech Meeting – NO Live TV (yet)
Posted: September 16, 2010 Filed under: Politics 11 Comments »
I attended the Greater Lowell Tech School Committee tonight and spoke in favor of Fred Bahou’s motion to air the meetings live on LTC. Paul Sweeney from Move Lowell Forward also spoke in favor of the motion.
Dracut representative Victor Olson was opposed to spending any money for the purpose of televising meetings live. He is of the opinion that the school committee keeping notes and minutes and posting on the web site is enough. Along with the fact that they already send out DVD’s and “anyone can come and tape the meetings” he doesn’t want anything to do with paying taxpayer money for TV. He did offer 3 times to donate a $100 to the cause out of his own pocket to pay for the box before he would spend taxpayer money. The fact that the school spends taxpayer money for everything seems to have escaped Mr. Olson.
Dunstable Representative David Tully offered a substitute motion authorizing $1250 for the equipment and upkeep and to begin televising the meetings live beginning in January. This seemed like a great substitute and since his community is unable to broadcast live, he saw no reason to stop Lowell from doing it.
Lowell Reps. Mike Lenzi and George O’Hare did bring up some valid points and concerns. Mr. Lenzi wanted to make sure that the quality of the video from the existing equipment would be as good as the Lowell City Council meetings. He had some concerns since the current equipment is over 10 years old and that he had heard because of the makeup of the building the signal/feed could be an issue and should be tested first.
Mr. O’Hare brought up a question that I have also wondered about. If LTC set up and mans the equipment at Lowell City Hall, since 83% of the Technical school is made up of Lowell students and Lowell pays a large portion of the Vocational budget, and the citizens of Lowell already pay for LTC, why can’t or won’t LTC provide personal and equipment to broadcast the Greater Lowell Technical Meeting?
So. Mr. O’Hare made a substitute motion to refer Mr. Bahou’s motion to the Technical Sub-Committee who will hold a meeting in the next two weeks and invite representatives from LTC, Dracut Public Access and the Tyngsboro/Dunstable Cable system to attend and discuss this issue. Mr. Bahou agreed with this and I think it is well worth looking into. I have felt that LTC ignores the Technical School and has since Jack Hall stopped being the city’s liaison to LTC many years ago.
It will be interesting to find out why LTC will not or cannot support the Technical School in the same fashion they televised the Lowell School Committee, City Council and other municipal boards. If Mr. Bahou is correct and it would only cost $965.00 to buy the “box” that is needed to transmit, surely we LTC can afford that and can find the camera people. If it is true that Dracut, Tyngsboro and Dunstable do not have the ability to broadcast live, LTC could charge them a small fee to record a DVD for each community.
Gerry – I’m still on the board of directors of LTC so I’ll pass this post on to LTC’s Executive Director so she’ll be ready for the forthcoming invite from the school.
Just for background, LTC receives a portion of its funding from the cable TV franchise fee (the rest is member dues, grants, fund raising, etc) to operate channels 8 and 95 in Lowell. The city of Lowell is responsible for channel 10, the municipal channel. The city of Lowell has hired LTC to operate that channel and pays LTC a substantial sum of money for that service which includes filming municipal meetings. I suspect LTC will be happy to prepare a similar contract proposal for the Greater Lowell Technical School Committee to consider.
Thanks Dick, I think most people like myself, assumed that LTC did those meetings for “free” from the money from the cable TV franchise fee .
Any idea what the cost to Lowell is?
Public access television stations, or PEG as their called (short for public, educational and governmental) are channels available for public use. Cable companies seeking to offer their services to municipalities have had to negotiate with local governments: in exchange for the use of public property, cable companies have to sign video franchising deals. Municipalities use fees from the deals for public access TV services and stations.
Cable TV providers negotiate local franchises with individual municipalities. Since the franchises are in effect partial monopolies, the municipalities can choose between competing providers. Most importantly, the municipality maintains control over local right-of-way (access to public areas for running cable, etc.). In exchange for access to the publicly owned right-of-way, municipalities negotiate for fees and services from the cable provider. These fees and services are what make the Public, Educational and Governmental channels and facilities possible. In addition, a local franchise provided a mechanism for addressing local complaints (poor service) and it insured that build-out and other public interest requirements could be closely monitored. As franchises expire, the municipalities can re-negotiate (either with the same provider or another competitor) and the fees and services can be renegotiated based on real need (such as additional PEG channel capacity for instance). These franchise fees a passed on to the Cable TV subscribers bills each month by the Cable providers.
Lowell currently has a five year license that was automatically extended an additional 2 years issued to Comcast of Southern New England, Inc. for a Cable Television Franchise through 10/10 2015. Section 5.3 of the License agreement defines annual operating funds: access funding. Comcast provides Lowell annual payments for PEG access purposes equal to Five percent (5%) of its gross annual revenues, less applicable License fee assessments. Out of the 5% provided, Comcast provides the Access Corporation (currently Lowell Telecommunications Corporation) annual operating grants equal to 2% of its gross annual revenues. Member dues, grants, fund raising, etc also support the public access and education portions of PEG.
The City utilizes remaining percentage (3%) to cover the government portion of the municipal access programming. Section 5.7 Municipal Access Channel of the License includes the following language “The Issuing Authority (City), through the Access Corporation (LTC), operates under the supervision of the Issuing Authority, is responsible for operations and programming of the Municipal Access Channel. In consideration for its designation pursuant hereto, the Access Corporation shall be responsible. In consideration for its designation pursuant hereto, the Access Corporation shall be responsible to ensure live cablecasting of regularly scheduled City Council and School Committee meetings as requested by the City Manager.”
The License specifically states that “With respect to City Council and other municipal meeting coverage, the issuing Authority shall determine whether the cablecasting of such municipal meetings shall be on the municipal and /or public access channels” To show meetings “live” on Lowell’s municipal channel requires a vote of the City Council and not the GL Tech School Committee.
Section 5.4 – Capital Facilities Payments includes the following language paragraphs
“(a) Licensee (Comcast) shall make capital equipment payments to the Issuing Authority (City of Lowell) in the amount of $120,000 for each year of the License …”
(b) The Capital equipment and facilities payments made under Section 5.4(a) above, shall be for use by the Issuing Authority, the Access Corporation, the School Department, and the Greater Lowell Technical High School in such amounts as the Issuing Authority shall determine. “
This is the funding source that should be used to purchase equipment to be able to show meeting “live” to Lowell cable TV subscribers. If the City already distributes funds each year to the Access Corporation and the schools then the funds appropriated to purchase the modulator should be specifically allocated from these funds provided. If not, then a specific request needs to be made through the City Council.
I questioned the use of funds allocated by non cable subscribers and other communities used to enhance service to Cable TV subscribers in another community. The matter was referred to the Technology Subcommittee where a more thorough vetting of the issues can be understood.
A link to the complete License agreement is attached.
http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/dtc/catv/license/Comcast/Lowell%204_20_09.pdf
I say we start the fundraising right now! Who will commit besides olsen?
I don’t know the exact amount of the city of Lowell – LTC contract but it covers the cost of at least two full-time LTC employees which is what it takes to cover all of the city’s meeting. That’s why I described it as “substantial.”
Gerry, don’t forget that GLT already has cameras and camera operators filming their meetings. They just have the output set to record for later telecast. All that’s needed to go live as well as record is the $965 Slingbox device. This whole discussion about LTC getting involved is unnecessary. All that’s needed is $965 from a school that has an annual budget of $22 million.
Mr. Howe, the issue is that the motion fails to recognize that the District is regional with four member communities. The motion as presented would call for the expenditure of funds appropriated by all the member communities for education purposes in order to provide a service for one member community and not provide sufficient funds for the other member communities to be able to provide the same service. Preliminary inquiries indicated that the cost to provide equipment to enable all communities to televise meetings” Live” would be much more than $1,000. There are 3 routes to getting the meetings televised “Live”.
1. The purpose of the upcoming technology subcommittee meeting would be to define the costs and technical requirements to provide the service to all the member communities. My concern is that the motion would have set a poor precedent of providing service to one community and not the others on the basis of cost. The second concern is what the total cost would be to provide this service to all the member communities at this time. The expending of education budget dollars for non-education purposes during a climate of budget cuts would have to be weighed once the total costs are considered. Finally, the current camera equipment used to record the meetings is more than 10 years old and the quality of a live broadcast may be marginal at best. Investment in new camera equipment would also be very expensive at this time.
2. A vote of the school board would not be necessary if LTC requested to install equipment and begin televising the meetings “Live” as suggested. Any person has the right to record, videotape or transmit (Live) the meetings only after only notifying the Chair and following instructions so as not to interfere with the proceedings of the meeting. If LTC made this request they could begin showing the meetings live as soon as the next meeting without action by the Board.
3. A donation of equipment (sling box) by LTC of some other private party to provide the infrastructure so that LTC could televise the meetings “Live” would only require a vote of the board to accept a donation. If the request to donate equipment was put on the agenda at the next meeting then as soon as the meeting following could be broadcast “Live” by LTC with acceptance of the donation by the board and notification to the Chair. I also indicated that if there are complications with LTC providing the equipment, then a private donation may be the simplest and fastest way to provide this service. In fact I pledged $100, if this is the route taken and if the author of the motion and those that spoke in behalf would match we would be more than halfway towards the funds required.
There is no objection to the concept of transmitting the meetings “Live” but there is debate as to the expenditures involved. If it comes down to expending tens of thousands of public dollars appropriated for education purposes versus raising a $1,000 in private funds to transmit meetings “Live” rather than a televised recording as per current practice, what would you do?
Mr. Olson,
Who are you pledging the $100 to?
Yes, budgets are tight. That’s why so many taxpayers are now interested in watching Greater Lowell Tech meetings live.
While the Slingbox would only provide live cablecast to Lowell for now (since the other three communities apparently don’t have the capability yet), it would also provide live streaming of the meetings on the internet at no additional charge. This means that taxpayers in Dracut, Tyngsborough and Dunstable who might otherwise have to wait years for live broadcasts could at least get them now on their computers. So buying one Slingbox would benefit all four communities; not just Lowell.
As for the quality of the cameras, they’ve been adequate to provide taped coverage for meetings up until now; whether the signal is being taped or shown live, it’s the same signal with the same quality so all the talk of the need for “new cameras” is misplaced.
Government can’t go wrong by becoming more transparent. Telecasting live is a pretty simple endeavor; John McDonough does it every morning from his living room. The longer this issue lingers, the more people will be paying attention to the overall operation of Greater Lowell Tech, which I suppose is a good thing.
The motion as it was worded was exclusive to airing meetings “Live” to one community and as such would be divisive in its design. The matter has been referred to the Technology subcommittee where a more thorough review of technical requirements, costs and with the collective input of cable access from all the member communities would factor into a recommendation.
Your continued positive input in this matter is appreciated. Having people paying attention yes, is a good thing and maybe they will begin to notice some of the great things that are happening with students finding their first steps on their paths to success.
Dick,
Thank you for that information, I was not aware of the fact that the city of Lowell paid LTC to cover it’s meetings,I’ll make sure to pass that along at the subcomittee meeting.
Also, we are not looking for a sling box to cover the meetings live, it’s a modulator that we’re looking for which works with the I-Net signal that airs directly to the cable channel, would that also cover the streaming via computer? I’m not sure,and is there a fee to do a live stream via the web? It’s important we keep our cost down.
I’m sure the three or more cameras we have at the school would be suitable to satisfy a live feed-I’ll make sure to ask the communications director about that.
Mr. Olson,
Have you ever heard of a pilot program? Why not try the City of Lowell and see if there are any problems with the set-up? It’s only a $1000.00? A very small percentage of the schools $32 million dollar budget not $22 million as stated. The school could use the students to operate the equipment for the live feed thus giving them, on the job training. This alone would be worth more than the $1000.00 it will cost to get the program off and running. If the pilot program works then the School Committee could see what the cost would be to feed the other three communities. I am sure that Henry Ford did not build thousands of cars on his first run but wanted to see how the assembly line worked first by building a few. Mr. Olson, get with the program and adjust to the schools needs. Show the students how to invest in something that is not always a sure thing but that the benefits will be worth taking the risk.