Well, not much to share. I reported to the Woodbridge BOS tonight, but my update took place in Executive Session;
REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF SELECTMEN MARCH 14, 2007 DRAFT MOTIONS
At 8:35 p.m. the Board VOTED UNANIMOUSLY (Sabshin – Stein) to move into Executive Session Pursuant to Section 1-200(6)(b) litigation: Denise Capone vs. Town of Woodbridge, and DPUC Mediation – Town Specific Television Channel. Invited to attend: Ms. McCreven, Chair, Government Access Television Commission; Messrs. Genovese, Hellauer, Perito, and Mrs. Shaw. At 8:45 p.m. the Board returned to the regular meeting. No motions were made or votes taken in Executive Session.
An odd message has landed in my inbox (even the salutation seems a bit off-kilter):
Dear First Selectman Sheehy and Sheila,
Late yesterday, the DPUC denied Sound View's January 31, 2007 request for an extension of time to February 28, 2007 for Sound View and Woodbridge to conclude a government access schedule policy. The DPUC Alternative Dispute Resolution department will be contacting Woodbridge and Sound View and hold the hearing at the DPUC.
I believe Woodbridge and Sound View can accomplish a mutually acceptable Agreement by February 28, and we are ready to address this at this time.
Thank you.
Thomas Castelot President
Hhhmmm... Doesn't paragraph two seem to directly contradict paragraph one?
It looks like we are headed full-speed now into mediation. The relevant paragraph from the DPUC's near-Valentine message denying Sound View's request for an extension of the January 31st deadline for a scheduling agreement with towns:
A member of the Department staff will contact the affected parties to schedule an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) session at the Department’s New Britain offices. Prior to the first ADR session, the Department may direct the parties to respond to a limited number of information requests to facilitate the negotiations and mediation.
I will update here to let everyone know when Woodbridge hears from the DPUC. I assume we will be contacted, but want to be sure we are included in this ADR process, since our negotiation has hit a brick wall -- imho!
As many of our readers already know, State Representative Paul Davis (H-117) and State Senator Joe Crisco (S-17) have introduced a bill to the legislature to clarify the role of each municipality to determine PEG channel content. The text of their bill, HB-5297, reads as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to allow municipalities to determine whether they will be served by a regional or town-specific approach to government-access television.
What say you? Send a copy of your testimony to our bloggers and we will post it in our collection for all the world to see. Come on, join the fun and have your say!
Read the post below for greater detail, but the quick take away from the Sound View response is that they are offering us just about half the hours we proposed.
Instead of accepting our bid for 22 hours each of seven days (for a total of 154 hours per week) for town specific content here in Woodbridge, Sound View is suggesting we settle for 78 hours.
Let's keep in mind that since its inception in 2001, WGATV has been operated by the Town to provide exclusively town specific content a total of 168 hours each week.
That's a big loss of hours for WGATV and the people of Woodbridge.
It was a cold and blustery day in Woodbridge, when suddenly an email landed in my Inbox. It's contents read thusly;
Dear First Selectman Sheehy,
The hard copy of the following attachments were mailed to you today. You will find Sound View's response to the Woodbridge Agreement dated February 7, 2007.
Thank you.
Tom Castelot President
OK, so I was actually CCed on this message (along with Laurence our trusty Woodbridge CAC representative, and Dale the Sound View attorney). That's not exactly the same as receiving this blustery correspondence firsthand. But now, as I downloaded the attached files and waited for them to open on my screen, I paused to think, think, think.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Well, dear reader, you will have to access the Handy GovTV Document Collection to see for your self; first the Sound View Coverletter, then, when you are adequately prepared and have properly steeled yourself, the Sound View Counter Proposal. (Yes, go ahead and look now -- you can come back to this post when you are done reading the documents.)
OK. So. Our Proposal for a 22/7 town specific/regional split has been met with, essentially, a Counter Proposal that starts out offering 24/3 then quickly slides down hill from there to offer 1/4 a day of town specific on Thursdays and 0 hours for the remaining 3 days (which might otherwise be known as 0/3).
It seems we are far apart at the opening of our negotiation.
At the Special Meeting of the Woodbridge Board of Selectmen last night, the Board voted unanimously to approve the Proposal put together by our Commission. Check out the recording below for details.
The document (available as approved in our handy GovTV Document Collection) was sent to Sound View today, along with a cover letter from the Office of the First Selectman.
As soon as we hear any word back, I will update here...
After a good deal of consideration, the Commission's Proposal has emerged as a public document at last! It was included in a Special Meeting packet for the Woodbridge Board of Selectmen late this afternoon and is available now to download as a PDF from our handy GovTV Document Collection.
So go take a look, and feel free to provide feedback by adding comments to this post (light blue link below).
The Proposal is set to be considered by the BOS on Tuesday, February 6th (the meeting agenda is also included in the same PDF).
Stay tuned for a blow-by-blow (and YouTube clip) then...
Hooray! We're back online with five discs spinning in a brand new carousel player. Pua just called from Town Hall as she was loading up the latest meetings (including the full version of the Commission's meeting we've excerpted below). WGATV is back in action again!
It seems that Sound View has applied for an extension of the DPUC's January 31st deadline, to March 5th. Check out the full request in our new handy online GovTV Document Collection!
Meanwhile, here in Woodbridge, the day has ended with some requested edits to our Proposal document coming from the new town attorney -- and since we have time now, apparently, why not perfect this document before sending it on to Sound View, eh?
So the upshot is that after these changes are made, the Commission will take a look again and the final version of the Proposal will then formally go to the Selectmen to review and consider at a Special BOS Meeting that will be called for February 6th. (I believe that document will technically become public information when it is disseminated to the Selectmen in their meeting packet, so that's when I plan to post it here.)
We'll be taping that meeting, of course (it will precede a Joint BOS/BOF Budget meeting already scheduled for production, so no problem there), and I'll post that section as a YouTube clip, asap...
Pua and I presented GATCom's FY08 operating budget proposal to the joint BOS/BOF meeting tonight. It went very well, imho, after some standard questions about our equipment purchase plans and the increased hours for coordination. Did anyone out there catch it live?
We also discussed the draft of our scheduling Proposal back to Sound View and what may happen in terms of mediation. The Selectmen and BOF seem to be united and in our corner on this as well as our budget request -- yeah, GATCom!
Stay tuned for the finalized scheduling Proposal -- I need to collect input from the Commission members and Pua tomorrow then run the final by town hall for a cover letter, and we should be good to go!
I received a message from Sound View and responded today (below). It's interesting to see what shapes up in writing after our meeting in person -- and on camera -- last week, would you say?
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:25:53 From: Sheila McCreven Subject: Re: Program Schedule/Incentive Program To: Thomas Castelot
Thanks, Tom. I will take a look at your summary and get back to you with any comments.
My fellow Commissioners and I will be putting together our proposal for the town-specific "narrowcast" schedule to be seen by Woodbridge residents in the next few days. After first discussing with Ed Sheehy, our First Selectman, we hope to have this proposal to you by January 31st.
Thank you very much for attending our meeting last week. Your presence and the information you and your team conveyed was very helpful to us. We are hopeful that Woodbridge and Sound View will come to a mutual agreement on scheduling in a timely manner.
Best regards, S.
In reply to Thomas Castelot: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Sheila,
Thank you for allowing Sound View Community Media, Inc. to participate at the commission meeting of January 23, 2007. John Ecay, Wyland Dale Clift, and I felt this meeting set the stage for a positive and productive partnership between Woodbridge and Sound View in enhancing the community access television assets for the Cablevision subscribers within Woodbridge and our franchise area. Our discussion focused on the following.
Narrowcasting/Town-Specific Program Schedule
In our attempts to maximize local programming on the government access channel and develop an acceptable narrowcasting programming schedule from Woodbridge to Woodbridge subscribers, it will be most helpful and appreciative to us to receive your narrowcasting or town-specific weekly programming schedule request and the number of time blocks you are seeking as soon as possible, hopefully by January 31st.
It will also be helpful to us to gain a picture of what a typical and current Woodbridge 24/7 cablecast schedule looks like. Sound View does not now have access to Woodbridge narrowcasting. Please include the following:
1) A most recent 24 hour program cablecast schedule for a one-week period (Sunday through Saturday) that is typical in nature during the course of a one-month period. The cablecast schedule should include the following:
a) The beginning day (i.e. Monday thru Saturday) b) Starting time of the first original program (i.e.12:00AM, 12:30PM) c) Program title (i.e. Board of Selectmen, Finance Committee) d) Total run-time (length) of program (i.e. 60 minutes, 120 minutes) e) Videotape or "Live" f) List repeat program schedule for that same day. g) Community calendar/event announcement schedule, total length of original schedule, and when repeat or rotating schedules are cablecast.
Duplicating Local Programs for Sound View Cablecasting
When Sound View reaches a mutual agreement integrating the narrowcasting and franchise-wide programming, Sound View will give prior notification to Woodbridge before the switching occurs. Sound View will require a copy of all programs that are cablecast on the community access channels (77, 78 and 79), whether transmitted from Woodbridge or from Sound View's facilities. To make this necessity transparent to the viewer, Sound View will seek access to the Cablevision I-Net that will make Woodbridge’s work effortless and cost effective.
Sound View is hopeful that Woodbridge will support our efforts to gain access to the I-Net and encourage such a recommendation to Woodbridge’s cable advisory council representatives. Absent that recommendation, making a copy of the local programming will not take much effort and not be costly as Sound View will provide Woodbridge with the necessary technology to accomplish that task.
Sound View Incentive Program 2007
We thank the commission for making suggestions to Sound View’s draft "Incentive Program 2007.” It makes good sense to incorporate in the Incentive Program to allow the incentive award participant to choose whether Sound View will select, purchase, hold ownership and be responsible for the equipment maintenance and repair of the access-related equipment, or whether the award participant selects, purchases, holds ownership, and be responsible for the equipment maintenance and repair of the access-related equipment. We will also incorporate archiving local programs at the desire of the municipality or organization. Where archiving local programs are desired, Sound View will commit to completing that function in a timely manner, and not later than 14 days from receipt of the program. Your continued suggestions are welcomed.
I hope I have captured the main discussion points from the commission meeting, and please add any points that I may have missed. Please don't hesitate to contact me, John, or Wyland Dale Clift if needed.
Sincerely,
Tom Castelot President
Now we'll have to think about our proposal... stay tuned!
Hello, fans of government access and sunshine for all!
OK, perhaps it's time to get everyone on the same page with developments post-refranchise decision. (Looking for details of what that decision actually decided? Check out the DPUC documents online /link not yet active/.)
The Woodbridge Government Access TV Commission (hereafter, GATCom) invited representatives of the DPUC-designated Community Access Provider (you guessed it, hereafter CAP) to begin discussion January 23rd on how a schedule for G-TV might be worked out for the town of Woodbridge.
Through the magic of YouTube (who needs a TV for GovTV anyway!? not us, apparently!), here is episode one, in which GATCom opens negotiations with SoundView Community Media (SVCM):
Ready for part two of this meeting? Here 'tis:
Part three (are you hooked on YouTube yet? Better question; did you realize you would need a little over an hour to take in all this blog post has to offer today? Yeah, you can't stop now, can you?):
Part four (listen carefully to what may strike you as some misunderstanding of just what the I-Net can and can't do):
Part five (yes, we're getting near the end of our session now!):
Part six -- starting, here again, with some confusing statements. Listening to this again, I can't help thinking, "If we develop more and more programming that's town specific, won't we then need and want more and more town specific time in our schedule -- not less?" But watch for yourself and see what makes sense to you:
Here's part seven -- the last segment, it lasts just over two minutes:
Well, now isn't that almost like you were there? (Were you talking back to your computer screen at times? See, just like you were there!)
But now, what are your thoughts? Please use the "comments" link (in green text, below) to post your reaction, read about other people's thoughts and maybe we can begin a larger discussion about what comes next -- just remember that these comments and everything on this blog is public. It's as though you are in a meeting, and a recording is being made that anyone might later see! Kind of like the concept of GovTV to begin with, eh?
Yes, it's a little notion called transparency -- can you stand with your fellow citizens in the sunshine? If so, let's begin the discussion everyone!
