Amherst Media also has to find a new building soon
A bit of a firefight is brewing for Monday night's Select Board meeting as Amherst Media Director Jim Lescault is not overly happy with the ten year cable contract license renewal negotiated by our Cable Advisory Committee and Temporary Town Manager Pete Hechenbleikner with mega Death Star corporation Comcast.
Amherst Media is our Public Access provider (with three channels) bringing us town government meetings and the occasional offbeat do it yourself productions.
Ten years ago the contract provided $450,000 in a one time capital equipment funding and this year Amherst Media was looking for $2.2 million.
Amherst Media Board of Directors President Steven Brewer, husband of Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer, is also very unhappy with the proposed contract.
Steven Brewer testifying at 9/25/15 Cable Ascertainment Hearing before Select Board
Comcast is offering $950,000, or less than half the request. But, as usual, the contract does call for a 5% cut of cable TV revenues (but not telephone or Internet) which come to about $300,000 annually.
Amherst Media needs to relocate to a new building within the next year
In addition to the bombshell about UMass possibly being a cable scofflaw dropped at last week's Cable Advisory Committee Meeting, Amherst Media Director Jim Lescault requested the CAC authorize a five year audit of Comcast revenues.
Because Amherst Media funding (around $300K annually) consists of 5% of the Comcast pie (around $6 million annually) for every dollar the audit turns up that was, err, hidden that would be five cents in revenue to Amherst Media.
Of course there is the matter of the $28,000 cost of the audit, which could be reduced significantly if other cities and towns join in.
Most recent Comcast quarterly revenue report
But the audit doesn't necessarily need to turn up hidden revenues that match the cost of the audit, since the hard to measure benefit is the negotiation value of catching Comcast doing something unseemly. Not that enormous corporations are known to do that (sarcasm).
The Cable Advisory Committee voted to support the legal services request but it will be up to the Select Board to make it so.
Cable Advisory Committee meeting 12/14/15. One member resigned so they are in need of a new volunteer
Amherst Media lease extended through January 1, 2017
Eversource has agreed to extend the lease for Amherst Media at their 246 College Street 1st floor location yet again so our local cable access media provider can continue to operate thru January 1, 2017.
The Electric Company had wanted to take back their building a few years ago but allowed them to stay through December 31 this year.
Although at the moment it looks like their rent will almost double from the current $1,740/month up to $2,913/month. Plus the cost of oil heating this winter.
Amherst Media purchased land (2 lots) around the corner on Main Street from Barbara Guidera for $340,000 and Amherst Town Meeting took the arduous step of rezoning the property to allow for commercial operations so a new building could be constructed.
Original plans were for her son Jerry Guidary to build a new structure for Amherst Media with their long term lease/committement in hand, but that project had trouble getting financing.
Historic Hills House top center. Amherst Media property in red
The $3.5 million capital fundraising campaign for the new 10,000 square foot building never materialized, so now Amherst Media has the landbut have pretty much given up on the idea of constructing a new building.
Which all comes at a fairly bad time as over the next year the town is in negotiations with Comcast for the ten year license renewal of cable TV, a deal that generated almost $7 million for the cable giant last year.
Amherst Media is funded by a 5% cut of cable TV revenues (but not phone or Internet users) from about 7,000 Comcast subscribers which last year came to $317,000 and this year is expected to be around $305,000.
In addition Amherst Media is starting to do more fundraising (about $5,000 this year) and they have a just under 150 members who pay $15 per year.
But, obviously, the Comcast funding is the motherlode.
The 2nd and final joint public meeting of the Amherst Select Board and Cable Advisory Committee to hear costumers concerns with Comcast service over the past ten years this morning was pretty much a rerun of the Ascertainment Hearing last week: Amherst Media is amazing, but Comcast kind of stinks.
Jones Library Director Sharon Sharry: Would like to see all three libraries wired for broadcast
This time 19 people (vs a dozen last week) came to the microphone to present testimony, and not a one had anything good to say about Comcast.
Peggy Roberts, Town Meeting Coordinating Committee Chair: "Amherst Media needs equipment replacement and extra staff support."
Amherst Cable Advisory member Demetria Shabazz led off the assault by pointing out Comcast is an $8 Billion company and rather than tie revenues only to the 7,000 cable TV customers it should include ALL profits including Internet and telephone.
Currently Comcast pays the town (who turns it over to Amherst Media) a little over $300,000 which represents 5% of the $6.5 million in revenues generated by 7,000 cable TV subscribers, but nothing from Internet or digital phone services.
Matthew Duranti, filmmaker: "Amherst Media helped me get my voice out there as a young film producer"
Most of the speakers pointed out Amherst Media is critical to our democracy because of the governmental meetings they cover (Select Board, Town Meeting, Finance Committee, etc), but they are currently stuck using outdated copper wire analog technology.
Chris Riddle, member of the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee, said the lighting in the middle School auditorium is old analog theater lighting that leaves a lot to be desired for Town Meeting members trying to watch presentations and for the signal beamed to viewers at home. He suggested Comcast upgrade the facility with new LED lighting and a digital sound system.
Louie Greenbaum: "Town Meeting sound system at Middle School is a terrible, terrible system unworthy of Amherst"
Ten years ago at the start of the contract Comcast contributed a one-time "technology upgrade" grant of $450,000. This time around, with the chorus of requests for fiber optic upgrade to the entire Amherst Media system, it sounds like the request will be a l-o-t higher.
Jim Lescault, Amherst Media Executive Director: Last year we provided 504 hours of original content over our three channels
At least one woman advocated for a switch in providers saying, "If I went to a doctor and they didn't have the equipment to make me better, why would I go back"?
But not a lot of other companies are going to wish to come to Amherst when they will have to wire the entire town to set up a new cable system.
So Comcast it is. Only questions are will their customer service improve, and how much more money will they be willing to invest in Amherst Media?
Final speaker Jim Lescault, Director of Amherst Media, addresses Amherst Select Board
The Amherst Select Board and Cable Advisory Committee hosted their first of two "Cable Ascertainment Hearings" last night with the second one scheduled for Wednesday September 30 at the Bangs Community Center at 11:30 AM.
The Select Board voted to adjourn their meeting after hearing an hour-and-a-half of testimony but they kept the public hearing on all things cable open until their October 5th routine Monday night meeting so citizens have plenty of time to provide them with written comments.
The ten-year contract with Comcast expires in October, 2016 and Federal law requires two public hearings as part of the Request For Proposals targeted to Comcast. Rates and programming are off the table as is anything related to Internet or phone service.
Cable Advisory Chair Kris Pacunas: These public hearings are "The most important tool for our committee."
A couple dozen citizens showed up, many of them associated with Amherst Media to champion our local cable assess entity that operates channels 12,15, and 17 -- aka, the local government beat.
Amherst School Committee member Vira Douangmay: "Amherst Media is important for our Democracy. People freak out when School Committee meeting are not televised."
Amherst Media is funded by a 5% cut of Comcast's overall Amherst revenues ($6.5 million) from its 7,000 subscribers, which came to $317,000 last year.
And once every 10 years a "technology upgrade" capital expense for new equipment, which came to $450,000 ten years ago.
But more than a majority of the audience came to complain about various service issues with Comcast -- either billing, quality of product or just overall customer service.
Wendy Jones Boisseau: I own a house on Pulpit Hill Road that's hard to rent because Comcast wanted $8,000 to install cable/internet service.
Staff liaison and town I.T. Director Sean Hannon said the Comcast fiber optic access is "very valuable," but the equipment used by Amherst Media is "very old and should be replaced."
The Cable Advisory Committee will come up with a ten year contract proposal that must first be approved by the Town Manager and then final approval rests with the Amherst Select Board.
Of course if you the customer don't like the final contract, the alternatives are pretty slim. All the more reason to make your voice heard NOW.
Now I understand the frustration our neighbors to the north feel--what we locals call "the hilltowns"--having to live without high speed wireless Internet.
The Amherst Police Station was a state of the art building at birth 20 years ago when wireless did not exist. Since then Amherst, Mass has become one of the very few municipalities in the nation to provide free wireless to the citizenry with a wide swath of the downtown covered, including Town Hall (where Select Board meetings usually occur) and the Police Station, except for the "Community Room".
About twenty years ago the state started pressuring cities and towns to make all municipal buildings handicapped accessible--especially those that host public meetings. That edict was even used as ammunition for the expensive Town Hall renovation Override 15 years ago, although it failed to convince voters both times at the ballot box. (Town Meeting eventually took out a $3 million renovation loan and former Town Manager Barry Del Castilho--not to mention his secretary who he later married--got a fancy new office.)
Wireless Internet is fast becoming the norm, like handicapped accessibility or air conditioning.But a journalist's age old prime directive remains the same: enforce the people's right to know. And in this digital era, interested people also have a right to get it instantly. Meanwhile, 2.5 hours later in the meeting...
So at Monday night's illustrious Select Board meeting our highly-paid bean-counter bureaucrats presented a how-we-doing budget analysis now that FY2010 is one-quarter completed.
(Naturally ACTV screwed up the live broadcast so us taxpayers have yet to see it, but I grabbed a PDF of the Select Board media package from the town website.)
Municipally owned and operated Cherry Hill Golf Course revenues stand at a pathetic $88,350 compared to $97,675 at this time two years ago. And expenses--you know that other half of the simple but important equation-- were $81,658 compared to $71,178 two years ago.
In other words revenues are down 9% while expenses are up 11.4%. Nice combination if you can afford it.
In the private sector when met with declining revenues we try to cut expenses. Last quarter, while millions of workers were laid off nationwide, about the only segment to show an employment gain was (BIG) government.
Gotta love the body language on Select Board Chair Princess Stephanie (2nd from left) about two minutes into this delay of last night's SB meeting as ACTV (a municipally funded local operation with an annual budget of $250,000) gets it act together.
So I feel a tad like the new Star Trek movie: earlier I uploaded the 7:35 PM 'Town Manager Report' and now (a few minutes past midnight) I've just uploaded the opening 6:30 PM 'Question Period'.
But ACTV screwed up the live broadcast, so I only just now got ahold of the digital version of the first part of the meeting (although obviously I was there in the flesh).
So I guess Fox News would come up with a great graphic and run this as a Cable News Exclusive: People's Republic of Amherst disses Public Safety (yet again)!
Since ACTV (operated on municipal funds) screwed up yet again, the illustrious Amherst Select Board meeting from last night will not air until 9:00 PM this evening. And of course the bricks-and-mortar newspaper media did not find much of interest to relate in today's black-and-white print editions. Although the Springfield Republican, as usual, scooped the Gazette covering this controversy a few days back.
Well, at least we know who wears the pants in that room (Original post, a little after midnight) UPDATE: 9:00 AM
So yeah ACTV screwed up yet again; nothing of the Select Board meeting went out live last night. I must be jinxed, because the last time I set up a strafing run and was going to have someone capture the 'Question Period' on a flash drive so I could instantly upload on the blog, ACTV sent out only audio for the entire live meeting.
Luckily I just purchased a 'Flip Camera' that does two hours of video.
I believe the Town Mangler even made an issue of ACTV's amateur-hour coverage last winter at the following Select Board meeting. Keep in mind this organization is essentially a town-owned, tax supported $250,000 per year business .
So along with Cambridge, the People’s Republic of Amherst experimented (in a Nazi sort of way) with “Rent Control” back in the 1980’s. Naturally this being the United States of America where supply and demand rules, it did not work.
Yet it took us this long to put a bullet in the back of the head of the 'Housing Review Board.'
Notice how former Chair Harry Brooks (still drunk on the power he once possessed) delights in retelling the story of brow beating and intimidating a women he describes as a “friend of mine”. Yikes!
Mr. Brooks is currently one of seven members of the “Town Meeting Coordinating Committee” (they come up with new rules and regulations for the antiquated body); and he’s one of three members of the Amherst Registrar of Voters (the folks who sided with former Czar Ann Awad after she moved to South Hadley but wanted to remain an Amherst town official to bolster her retirement pension benefits) and his wife Paulette Brooks, also a town meeting member, is Executive Committee President of ACTV (the cable access TV folks who consume $250,000 annually to broadcast Amherst government functions).
