April 4, 2012 Minutes
MINUTES of CTAC of Hamden, New Haven, and West Haven
Meeting date: 4/4/12
Call to order: A regular meeting of the CTAC, was held at CTV, Hamden, CT on 4/4/12. The meeting convened at , President Tad Weinstein presiding, and Jennifer Sacco, secretary.
Members in attendance:
George Alexander, H treasurer
Carl Lambert, Sr., H
Don Levy, H
Joyce Listro, NH
Jen Sacco, H secretary
Tad Weinstein, WH chair
No CTV representative present
No Comcast representative present
Approval of minutes: Motion was made by Carl, and seconded by Jen to approve the minutes of the 3/7/12 meeting. Motion carried.
Officers’ reports:
No Comcast report
No CTV report
George presented our correspondence. We received a copy of a letter to the mayor of Hamden, etc., regarding the airing of programs from One World Institute at inconvenient times. Per our earlier negotiated resolution, any missed and requested episode should be made available by CTV on the website, but apparently that server is not working properly as of today (4/4/12). However, efforts are underway to fix the server.
Don moved that Jen draft a response to be agreed to by our group via email that can be forwarded to the complainants. Joyce seconded; motion carried.
Johnes sent an email to indicate that he is still researching policies regarding cable rates with the state legislature.
New business:
The group agreed to think of a contest for the schools to award a technology grant. We have in principle agreed that students will be asked to create a 90 second video promoting public access television, and each of the middle schools in the three towns will be asked to enter, and that we will have a first, second, and third place winner, and run the contest in the 2012-2013 school year. We will refine our ideas via email and at our next meeting.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 6:55 p.m..
Jennifer Sacco
Secretary
CTAC
March 7, 2012 Minutes
MINUTES of CTAC of Hamden, New Haven, and West Haven – 3/7/12
Call to order: A regular meeting of the CTAC, was held at CTV, Hamden, CT on . The meeting convened at , President Tad Weinstein presiding, and Jennifer Sacco, secretary.
Members in attendance:
George Alexander, H treasurer
Richard Gay, WH
Carl Lambert, Sr., H
Don Levy, H
Johnes Ruta, NH
Jen Sacco, H secretary
Tad Weinstein, WH chair
Joe Schofield, CTV
Sharon Codeanne, Comcast representative
Approval of minutes: Motion was made by Carl, and seconded by Richard to approve the minutes of the Feb. 1, meeting, with two changes specified regarding CTV address and details pertaining to cost related to moving. Motion carried.
Officers’ reports:
Comcast report made by Sharon Codeanne. George forwarded letter from customer with check payment enclosed. Richard reported that he gets pixellation of his picture regularly, as does Jen. Sharon said she would ask a tech to investigate. Jen also indicated her Tivo no longer works now that the digital network enhancement has been completed. Sharon had not heard of Tivo incompatibility, and said she would look into it. George indicated that he has had trouble with his internet speed when trying to work on his website, and gets a test result indicating he is only transferring data at 2-3 mbps. Sharon said she would look into it. These are problems that many more other customers must be experiencing. George read a letter from a customer James S. complaining about an unclear bill from Comcast. Sharon indicated that the information included is required by law; Jen maintained that there is still an easier way to deliver the “punchline” (total price increase to expect) for customers, based on their service packages. Carl indicated that he has inquired about his bill to customer service, and customer service employees don’t know what the individual charges are for and can’t explain them. The customer’s complaint has been forwarded directly to the representative from Comcast.
CTV report made by Joe. New server had lost power supply, but was quickly fixed by the company who made it. CTV had alternative programming/bulletin board on air during that time. CTV is still trying to work out a contract to be carried over AT&T; CTV is waiting for a response from AT&T. CTV is still in negotiations for a new property; they are still trying to come to terms, and are also meeting with the town of Hamden. Regarding the old Tightrope server, CTV will be able to recoup some of their expenditures since the server had to be replaced.
George indicated that PURA is soliciting exceptions to the draft decision on docket 11-08-06 before our April meeting, so we will read and respond online if necessary.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 7:05 p.m.
Secretary
CTAC
February 4, 2009 Minutes
MINUTES of CTAC of Hamden, New Haven, and West Haven – February 4, 2009
Stu Arotsky WH
George Alexander H
Gabriel Michael NH
Jennifer Sacco H
Tad Weinstein WH
Sharon Codeanne Comcast
6:08 p.m. meeting called to order.
Old business: Tad is pulling together our annual report for 2008 to the DPUC.
Mail: Alliance for community media sent us a welcoming packet (again). Gabriel is considering joining the listserv to monitor their updates. They have a national conference in Portland Oregon.
New business: motion to donate $300 to the Alliance for Community media passed (in addition to our $100 membership fee).
George made motion to approve new 2009 budget, which has same line items as last year, except for the new allocation to the Alliance for Community media, which is a $300 donation on top of our $100 membership fees. Jen seconded, approved.
Tad has suggested that we make a grant available again to the towns for a school cable-related project again. Stu has suggested we announce to the towns a new program of this sort so they may apply. George suggests we email the school superintendants of the towns to solicit applications. George will email our old grant regulations from the last time this was done for us to look over. George proposes we temporarily allocate $1500-2000 per town.
Stu is concerned that CTV is in violation of the rules because they are not submitting a budget to us, etc.
Digital transition is still set for February 17th, though there is the possibility it could still be moved to June.
Jen raised the issue of working to petition to move public access back to regularly accessible channels and viewing quality. Perhaps we need to convince CTV to join AT&T (even on channel 99) so that we could have standing to file complaints with the DPUC. As our current area has no representation on AT&T, we don’t appear to have standing. Unless, those of us who are AT&T customers were to write complaints to AT&T that PEG channels are not available, though AT&T would plausibly put that back on CTV. We could still complain to AT&T about the low quality presentation of public access originating from other towns.
Minutes from last month’s meeting approved. Motion to adjourn 6:57 p.m.