ORDER-2021-48 : An Appropriation from the Peg Access Cable Fund (#2922) in the amount of $344,572.23 to MMTV and Melrose Public Schools.

Transcript (~33 min @ 19:23)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 19:16 Jeff McNaught: like from MMTV here tonight. I'm not sure who's coming in the room if more than one's

▶ 19:25 Speaker 1: coming in at one time. Sure, so I'm going to bring in the Executive Director and I'm also going to bring in the Business Manager, Ms. Secor, from the schools He can let us know if he needs additional folks.

▶ 19:40 Speaker 1: And I also have this, um, I could hear my goal is simply she was on snap as well. Okay. Okay. I don't know if they can hear us. Can you all hear us? I can hear you, but, uh, I don't it doesn't appear that my camera is turned on.

▶ 20:01 Speaker 5: Okay, um, that's something on your end.

▶ 20:06 Jeff McNaught: I wouldn't know, but we can hear you Mr. Doyle. Okay. We worked earlier during the test.

▶ 20:17 Speaker 1: I can see Ms. Margolis and I can see Ms. LaCroix as well.

▶ 20:21 Speaker 5: So Mr. Doyle, did you want to take a moment to try and fix that? Or do you want to just

▶ 20:34 Speaker 3: Continue on how that was Kristen. How would I fix that? I've never used WebEx before.

▶ 20:42 Speaker 1: What do you answer from the meeting on as what device?

▶ 20:48 Speaker 1: Laptop phone. Yeah, I'm on a MacBook at the bottom. Oh, MacBooks might have. Oh, I see it. I see it. I see it. Yeah, it's a video. It's a video button and then you.

▶ 20:55 Jeff McNaught: There we go. Thank you for joining us tonight. Mr. Doyle, Ms. McAteer-Margolis, and Ms. Sikor. I know that we have three of you in the room to discuss one order at this time. I think it would be best if we just started off with maybe a quick overview from Mr. Doyle on the order if that's something you'd like to do.

▶ 21:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a standard. We get funding from the cable companies, for those of you out there who don't know that. And every quarter, we come before the city council for an appropriative. About two years ago, the state mandated that it has to go through the municipality to come to us to be appropriated. But for 27 years, it came directly from the cable companies to MMTV. So, that's basically the gist of it, and we're here to answer any questions that you may have.

▶ 22:06 Robb Stewart: Councillor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. McGeeter and Mr. Doyle. A constituent of my ward came on during public comment, and I thought he had a pretty interesting question which i wanted to share with you yeah and i wondered if you could uh if you had a chance to hear uh mr mcsweening's comments you could uh just to respond to those that would be great

▶ 22:36 Speaker 3: i think that it's a fantastic idea i mean as crazy as cope it is it has opened up more meetings through webex and whatnot and we have been taking the meetings that not just the city council the school committee but other meetings that you have and broadcasting them on our website and we've gotten a lot of people that were saying you know thank you for doing that you know i never knew that committee existed or i really always wanted to see it and hopefully down the line you know maybe this will continue maybe this will be the the new norm you know the city council and the school committee meet back in the in the chamber and the other committees continue to do it virtually and we would love to broadcast them i mean i think it's great thank you mr joel and um

▶ 23:19 Robb Stewart: i i appreciate your your interest in um saying that it's a good idea are there any plans beyond uh uh acknowledgement that it's a good idea i believe we could look into down the line

▶ 23:34 Speaker 3: i'm all for it i would have to go you know before my board of directors and other staff members at mmtv but i think it's anything to get information out to the community whether through television or the internet is what we're we're here to do pretty much may i just jump in for a moment

▶ 23:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: uh to help out with that answer mr stewart go ahead miss mcintyre michaelis thank you chairman

▶ 24:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: um so yeah mr mcsweeney has um been a big supporter of of cable access and of our our endeavors in in our development so as mr. as Patrick said you know we're we would really love to continue this we would need to be working hand-in-hand with the city because it's not really just our our own idea or our own goal to do this you know we we have to be able to cover meetings that take place in the chamber so if there's you know once once we get back to being in person so um as mr doyle said if we're going to continue with some of the committee's meeting remotely then definitely we should be able to do it otherwise you know it's a matter of scheduling if there's a traffic commission that needs to meet in the chamber in order for us to cover it live with the cameras then we would need to you know work hand in hand with um with uh ms foote or the committees that

▶ 25:17 Robb Stewart: are thinking of doing that great thank you and and thank you mr chair councillor thomas

▶ 25:25 Cory Thomas: thank you mr chairman uh welcome to all the staff from mntv

▶ 25:32 Cory Thomas: the wonderful job you guys do uh bringing programming and news uh to the community i I did want to take this moment to thank Mr. Doyle. Mr. Doyle has been working for MMTV for a number of years, a number of decades. And, you know, I just want to thank Pat for all your dedication to the community and all the programming and entertainment you've brought to the community of Melrose over the years. So thank you, and it's great to see you in here. That being said, the Melrose High School TV production class under Mr. DiBenedetto, They've been doing a great job recently broadcasting live sporting events. I think there's a need in the community to have these meetings and other city meetings broadcast live. Is there a capability of bringing our meetings live to the community and Melrose TV and this Webex format?

▶ 26:26 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Oh, we have our 1 of our other staff members here with us today. Mike minor. And if it, if it pleases the chair, we could bring Mike up to. Tell you what he's been up to the past a few days with the director. Is that a possibility?

▶ 26:48 Jeff McNaught: Madam clerk, is it possible to bring Mr minor in.

▶ 26:54 Speaker 1: As well, or do we need to remove someone? No, no, absolutely. Hold on 1. 2nd. I'll grab him and make him a panelist. Thank you very much.

▶ 27:02 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: We've been working on this for a while, so let's have some of the people in city hall. So.

▶ 27:11 Speaker 1: I mean, you because of echoing so that's why you're being muted. Sure.

▶ 27:16 Speaker 3: Well, good evening everyone. Thank you very much for the question counselor and thanks for the great discussion tonight. So, as we all know, last year through everyone for a loop and. We've been trying to adapt and evolve with the technology as many of the big firms have done. and i'm excited that our server which not to get too technical but the computer that spits the video out to comcast and verizon out into the world we had a great um upgrade to the the um the operating system towards the end of the year and we're able now to take more live streams and videos and push it right to the air so i had a chance to test that with neil the i.t director of the City of Melrose. We tested it today. It was a success and we're very hopeful that sometime next week we'll be able to start doing this on a regular basis. There's a few sort of steps that have to occur to make sure everyone's on the same page, but it's going to happen.

▶ 28:21 Cory Thomas: And the plan is next week. So this will be live. Yeah. That's great to hear, Michael. And I really think it'll really make these meetings more accessible and people in the community that Don't normally watch these meetings might be drawn to the more if they see that they're alive and especially during cobit time when there's a lack of programming on who doesn't want to see all of us on a nightly basis. So that couldn't agree more. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for you continue great work, the community, Melrose to all of you. Thank you.

▶ 28:49 Jeff McNaught: Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Thomas next. We have council Grigoraitis.

▶ 28:54 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here. My questions are similar to Councilor Thomas, and I know Mr. Miner was very helpful to myself, and then School Committee Chairman Mr. O'Connell in the summer when numbers were low and we thought there was a greater likelihood of being able to safely return to some sort of hybrid meeting format, which I fear is probably still some months off. um but to echo what mr doyle said i believe this is the new normal and i sincerely hope that we as a community never go back to members of the public only being able to speak before the planning board or the city council by trotting down to city hall at 7 8 9 10 p.m at night i don't think that's accessible so i would like to never lose the ability for folks to participate um via remote participation and i do know that in many communities including stoneman and Wakefield have been live streaming meetings. So I'm happy to hear that's happening. Is that gonna be both live streamed on the web and live broadcast or is it just, yes, okay.

▶ 29:55 Speaker 3: Yep, yep, that's right. So the idea is it'll be on both Verizon and Comcast on classical television as we think of it. And also if you go to mmtv3.org on the live menu, you can be able to see this with a 30 second delay or so, but that's just how technology is.

▶ 30:13 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you for your work on this. I have no further questions.

▶ 30:17 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Council Grigoraitis. Councilor McMaster.

▶ 30:22 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for for joining us this evening. I just had 2 questions. The 1st, 1 is for Mr. Meyer. So, it sounds like WebEx is, in fact, compatible with streaming the meetings. I'm wondering from your experience, anything that you've heard from other communities. If there is a better virtual platform for this purpose that aligns more closely with the computer, you mentioned that spits out the images on our computers. Yeah, so I think, you know, WebEx is, it's an okay platform, personally speaking. I'm more familiar with Zoom. Zoom is a platform that I use in some of my other endeavors. So it's been very reliable and works very well. I am also of the opinion that once you get something working well enough and everyone's familiar with it it's not a bad idea to think about sticking with it that said I would say zoom is another platform we're thinking about if this is

▶ 31:28 Speaker 3: a question that we can revisit at some point but it would be something I think worth talking about with Neil and certainly the operators and the hosts

▶ 31:36 Shawn M. MacMaster: who do these meetings too okay thank you mr. minor and I think this is for mr. Doyle or even Ms. Makatera Margolis with both her current hat and the hat that she wore as a consular, if she can shed any light on this. As I'm wondering, and I think this would not just be helpful to me, but some of the newer consulars, what changed after 27 years that prompted the revenue stream from the cable company to go directly from cable companies to MMTV that now, I guess for lack of a better word has the council as a as a channel or a pass-through what is the history there what was the impetus for that

▶ 32:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: legislative change you're muted in 2019 we were advised by Patrick tell Rousseau the CFO that the state was instituting a new regulation. I'm just looking for it now. I think it was chapter 44, section 53 F, requiring that all cable access funds be routed through the city that you set up. It offered a variety of options, but the choice that the department had made at the time was to establish a special fund. So the funds that we, for 27 years, as Patrick said, received directly as a result of the contracts that we negotiated with the mayors and MMTV boards and city solicitors and outside solicitors became funds that went from the Comcast and Verizon to the city for the city to hold and disperse. Now, there was an option to disperse them quarterly. We felt that we were in a position that we could only that we could do it twice a year instead of four times a year. So in the meantime, they are held in a special fund, which I believe you have the number of on your order

▶ 33:57 Shawn M. MacMaster: tonight thank you and do we know what the the reason for that was what the legislative intent

▶ 34:04 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: was if you know i don't know really i think it was um maybe consistency because some cable access stations are actually part of the municipality and run by the municipalities or the towns we however are a separate 501c3 nonprofit incorporated with the board of directors so some communities you know run it that way some run it as i say through through their municipal government so i believe that they that they were looking for consistency um interestingly enough Mr. McMaster's the fund has to exist for three years after which should the council or selectmen choose it can in fact be dissolved and it can go back to the former process of going

▶ 35:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: directly so I don't know okay and just so the public at home understands is it fair to say that we are merely as the council the vehicle to bring the money uh to you that we don't have any ability to earmark the funds that are before us this evening for particular projects that is correct

▶ 35:20 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: basically um this discussion should really be about appropriating 275 000 for us and whatever it is for the schools so um yeah but i mean obviously we're happy to to try to answer questions on behalf you know from the community mr mcsweeney is welcome to come down anytime and talk with us as as any of you are as well to um meet and give us your ideas as to how you'd like to see things proceed because i do think as as mr doyle has said and um miss Grigoraitis that this is um really the future and it and it is a great vehicle for um us to get your information and government information out um to the citizens so that's part of our mission that's a big part of

▶ 36:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: our mission great thank you again for being here and for all of your good work thank you you too

▶ 36:17 Jeff McNaught: thank you council mcmaster councillor Garipay thank you mr chairman uh thank you mr doyle

▶ 36:21 Mark Garipay: thank you mr minor and thank you uh miss mcintyre margolis especially for taking the time over the weekend i think i kept uh talk to your air off for about an hour on saturday and the conversation was uh was very informative and i learned a lot about what uh what mmtv does and how it operates so um with that being said most of my questions were asked i do have one question and it's regarding the um the um order uh the pixel lock cameras that came before the school committee and we We know we had a conversation, which was tabled, and the reason for that was to try to have access to events that were going on during COVID, but, of course, after. And it was my understanding that there was going to be some, hopefully, this was going to move forward with MMTV and I believe the city and the school committee. And I was hoping we could just get a little update on where potentially that stands as we continue to move forward.

▶ 37:24 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: sure and we're we're um in addition to i just want to practice it by saying in addition to the monies that you're going to be appropriating this evening for the school department mmtv out of the monies that we receive um support the educational program uh throughout the school district um but particularly at the at the high school level with um additional equipment we built out the the learning commons the middle school we've done all the video equipment for for all of um the buildings that um have received it and probably to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars over the past maybe four years um so we do hope to continue those discussions on um the pixel lot um our board president dave roe has been um continuing in negotiations and on top of that he is here this evening i believe as a um you know he can participate if anybody wants to really ask him questions about this but it it is an ongoing effort we are about to install within the next probably two or three weeks we hope um a direct line uh from the verizon poll to um the broadcast booth i i believe but maybe we should if i if i may yeah mike you can talk today

▶ 38:52 Speaker 3: if i may very much yes um thank you um so right so it's uh thank you very much for the question uh councilman and um our president dave roe is here as well if he wants to make any additional comments but uh essentially um what has happened is uh there was an initial round of negotiations um last i want to say towards the end of last summer early fall um as we all know covet canceled a lot of things so uh we started to look at when would we actually do this uh here we are in january um we think we have an improved agreement with pixalot at this point It's something that we're going to pursue in the meantime, no matter what happens if we want to get football broadcast live. There needs to be a direct line into the press box on Fred Greenfield. And instead of having the school department fund that, or the city fund that directly, we believe that we. Can and will fund that so we're going to be supporting the direct hard line to the. And in the meantime, the education program, that's been doing dynamite work. At the high school with Mr D Benedetto and his team. Live streaming and broadcasting on our channels. All sports this winter, they're doing a great job and I'm confident they'll continue to do a great job, but we're building out the infrastructures to accommodate the pixel cameras. So I'm hopeful that if not this season, we will be ready to rock for 2021, but maybe sooner.

▶ 40:22 Mark Garipay: Thank you. I look forward to seeing it in all the facilities, not just that, but for drama and the auditorium. And I will say kudos to the last two Saturdays at 11 a.m. I've watched the Moro's High School basketball team live stream and the announcers are awesome. They do a great job and it's fun to sit there and it's not like being there, but it's definitely, they're doing a great job, Morris High School TV. It's the next best thing, Mark, of being there.

▶ 40:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm particularly proud, this past weekend we actually did two games simultaneously on two channels, the freshmen and the JV, at 9 a.m. So if you want to get up even earlier, you can check it out.

▶ 41:10 Mark Garipay: I haven't watched the JV. I haven't watched the Freshman, but the announcers make it, so. They do. They do. And if you miss it, you can watch the replays on the Educational Channel's YouTube channel, and, of course, the Educational Television Channel, which is Comcast Channel 15 and Verizon Channel 37. All right. Thank you all for being here. Thanks for educating me on the process. And, once again, thank you, Ms. McIntyre-Maibolas, for your time.

▶ 41:42 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Councilor Garipay. Do we have any other councilors for the first time?

▶ 41:50 Jack Eccles: Councilor Eccles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is for anyone who feels comfortable answering this. I just, with an eye to the future, I'm also kind of, I've been loving being able to attend planning boards and DBA meetings remotely. And so just to kind of go back to the constraints here, just so it's clear for anyone who might want to see a concrete plan about being able to access these meetings without any additional infrastructure right now you were only able to live broadcast from the chamber right so any is that correct and then so any anyone who meets and say the Cassidy conference room or downstairs there's no way to really bring that to you live you're on your

▶ 42:38 Speaker 3: mute pet you're muted as of right now the only place we can broadcast from city hall is from the chain but there has always been talk even way before covert about doing you know other meetings live from you either you know whatever room they wanted to do from the only thing is that most some of these meetings are coexisting at the same time so we can only air one meeting on the television channel at that one time but if we do it virtually we can always do replays down the line or whatnot so there's plenty of opportunity to think about the future and i think this is a great platform you know like i said earlier that if covet has taught us anything that virtual is the way to go for the future uh whether in broadcasting it on our our television

▶ 43:23 Jack Eccles: platforms thanks that was helpful thank you all for being here thank you thank you counselor

▶ 43:27 Jeff McNaught: eccles do i have any other counselors for the first time counselor senella president that's okay

▶ 43:35 Christopher Cinella: um echoing everyone's sentiments thank you for being here tonight with on this topic of the future what is the future i guess of mmtv with the web-based platforms like youtube tv hulu where a lot of people have migrated away from cable like i have and we don't i don't have access to public tv now obviously i can go online and watch the meetings but i don't have that channel at all and i think a large percentage of the population is kind of going in that direction

▶ 44:15 Speaker 3: um what we're planning on doing down the line is we can do a live stream of our channels on our websites down the line so for those there are a lot of people who do like you said do not have cable television who want to stay up to date on what's going on on local politics sports or entertaining shows they want to watch on mmtv that is something that we could probably do sometime in the very near future is live stream our channels on our website and just to echo to echo that um

▶ 44:45 Speaker 3: thank you um you know just from a technology standpoint and access standpoint we view the way we think of our mission is access is about access and how can you get that information to people where they are because it's all very important um so we look at multiple platforms um as a lot of you know um you can find some of our content on our website the archives of the meetings of course uh youtube facebook live for those of you who would like to tune in tuesday nights at 8 30. uh let's talk melrose melrose is a live news show every single week um that's all about melrose news um so i would say just briefly it's a hybrid the future is uh different platforms for different people but we aim to meet those needs as best we can i might i might just jump in

▶ 45:32 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: to um to let you know and to let the public know that the only revenue we receive from the cable companies is from cable television so initially um we did receive internet funding a percentage of the internet providers as well but that is that went away a long time ago and there has been a conversation at the federal level about bringing some of that revenue back but it's nothing that is moving in any direction that looks positive so hopefully you know we have enough to sustain us for a good long time but it's why it is important for these appropriations to be made in a timely fashion because we are seeing a decrease in our revenue year year to year so and it's you know

▶ 46:37 Speaker 1: um the more people that that cut the cord so to speak the uh the less money we'll be receiving

▶ 46:50 Speaker 5: from the cable companies do i have any other counselors for the first time seeing none

▶ 46:59 Cory Thomas: counselor thomas thank you mr chairman uh just quickly uh i just wanted to touch on something that counselor Garipay uh brought up uh while he was speaking um this is not all sports related uh the pixel like cameras um it's the national honor society induction it's the senior awards it's it's It's a number of freshmen and sub varsity sports and all kinds of drama productions, band coverage of their competitions that are on the Fred Green field. It's a lot beyond sports. So I just wanted to state that for the record and people watching at home and later on video. All right, so thanks again for being here.

▶ 47:42 Jeff McNaught: Have a good night everyone. Do I have any other counselors that wish to ask any questions?

▶ 47:53 Jeff McNaught: Motion to recommend passage by Councilor Sinella seconded by, sorry, President Sinella. It's my first time too, guys.

▶ 48:01 Speaker 3: $10 fine.

▶ 48:02 Jeff McNaught: President Sinella seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis. Of course, they both swapped spots, so they've got me really confused. Before we take the role on that, I just had a couple of comments and a quick question. One is, in looking at the MMTV webpage, I didn't notice if there was a staff page or any way to get in touch with anyone about how do I obtain membership or who can I contact if I have certain types of questions. learned a lot here tonight which makes me think of this question even more um i think it's been an excellent discussion and you all mean so much to the community it's just a question that that

▶ 48:56 Speaker 3: came to mind so i do believe there's a contact tab on the web page and there's an email address and a contact form um but by all means um give us a call 781-665-mmtv and 360 main street is is where we are, but there should be a contact page.

▶ 49:15 Jeff McNaught: Ms. McAteer-Margolis, you're muted. I don't know if you're...

▶ 49:19 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: It is on the website. It says connect, it's under connect or visit. And additionally, we have a Facebook page, as Mike was telling you that we use for a variety of things. So, but right, yep. And you can email us, our emails are on there as well. anybody that's interested in membership that's one of the things that I do so we have very low rates if any for we haven't changed 30 years I would love to

▶ 49:56 Speaker 3: see an alderman talk show that would be great excuse me City Council talk so

▶ 50:04 Jeff McNaught: That's another recent change. You get a free pass. I just had one other question. It was about WebEx and going live next week. I don't believe we're closed captioning again here tonight. Is WebEx going to be able to provide that for us going forward, especially in a live format?

▶ 50:25 Speaker 3: That is something we're working on with Neil to try to problem solve for the closed captioning, but there's a couple different ways we're trying to solve that particular question,

▶ 50:38 Jeff McNaught: but we are looking into it thank you very much again i i echo everyone else's sentiments and how much you all mean to this community um and what mmtv means to this community and i think this has been an excellent discussion um and um i i hope uh to have discussions like this going forward it's been excellent having you all here um you've all jumped in at different times and it's been really really helpful to understand how things work so thank you very much all that said madam clerk will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes vice chair eccles

▶ 51:13 Speaker 1: yes counselor trama chozy yes counselor mcmaster yes council agarapay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes the motion passes and one more thing

▶ 51:41 Speaker 3: before we go I like to publicly thank Kristen for sending us all the meeting files during the court period why we weren't broadcasting live so hats off to Kristen. Thank you very much.

▶ 51:54 Speaker 1: She's a member of our team now. Thank you all.

▶ 51:58 Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

▶ 52:00 Speaker 5: Thank you for being here.

▶ 52:00 Speaker 3: Thank you. Call us anytime. Bye-bye.

▶ 52:10 Jeff McNaught: Okay. Next up is an appropriation from free cash, number 20, Order 2021-43, an appropriation from free cash amount or account. I'm sorry, my eyes are failing me. It's getting late in the evening. Account 01-324-001, and the amount of $50,000 in HR professional services. Account 011-522-529000 to fund a compensation and classification study. I believe we have our HR director, Ms. Lada here with us.