ORDER-2022-147 : An Appropriation from the Peg Access Cable Fund (#2922) in the amount of $276,764.16 (Two Hundred Seventy - Six thousand, Seven Hundred Sixty-Four Thousand and sixteen cents) to MMTV and Melrose Public Schools.

Transcript (~7 min @ 19:30)

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▶ 19:28 Jen Grigoraitis: Counselor Eckles. Yes Council. Gerepe. Yes. Counselor jamaladin, yes. Counselor Stewart. Yes counselor car. I'm Shady. Yes Townsend president. Yes. And Cherry redis. Yes. That's seven. Yes seven. Yes, so that will be recommended to the full Council for passage. Thank you so much for being here tonight. I wish you a wonderful evening next I will entertain a motion to take order 2022-147 out of order. So moved it. Again. We have a motion to take order 2022-147 out of order made by President sinellas seconded by counselor Stewart any discussion Seeing none all in favor any opposed. Okay, so we now have order 2022-147 and appropriation from the peg access cable fund number 2922 in the amount of 276,000 764,016 to mmtv and Melrose Public Schools, and we are joined tonight by former counselor Mary Beth McIntyre our goal is welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is a request for the appropriation and the mmtv portion. I believe is 221,000 and change. The balance goes to the schools. Is that the right? I don't have the order in front of me. I apologize.

▶ 20:50 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: So this is our biannual appropriation that comes through the public education government access fund that was established in 2019 by state mandate and the city holds the funds that come from Comcast and Verizon as a percentage of our subscribers in the community. And we we get 5% of whatever. Other discounts they provide and we split that with the school's 80/20. In addition to which we also fund a tremendous amount pretty much everything else at the school's in addition to their small amount that they get. So I'm happy to entertain any questions. Do we have any questions? Motion Council Gary, it's just

▶ 21:42 Mark Garipay: contract being negotiated right now. You know, one of

▶ 21:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: them is in negotiations. We have had the public hearing last fall. I believe late last fall and Verizon I believe is up first and then the Chromecast one is in the fall in.

▶ 22:01 Mark Garipay: How does it go is it through the city is it through the city attorney that

▶ 22:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: doesn't negotiate the City attorney is say more or less leads that I believe and then there is an outside attorney who is specializes in cable contract renewal

▶ 22:15 Mark Garipay: And I've said this before I would like to see I don't know if the submit this is probably a conversation with the city solicitor. I'd like to see the public schools see a little more of an increase, but but if that's if that's through the city solicitor, I

▶ 22:32 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: can reach out to that the 5% that this that we receive is the maximum amount and pretty much the reason that We were able to negotiate for five percent the last time around was because we basically said that whatever the schools needed we would provide and as you know, we did the Huddle system this past year. We did the install on that. We pay the monthly access for the Verizon line. So that was around that whole package is around $30,000 last year in addition to that our build-out of the TV studio and all the other ancillary things that we've done in the past, maybe four five years has probably amounted to over 200,000. So we're happy to do that because we are getting and we were up from four and a half percent. I totally agree with you. It would be great if the schools could get more but we do have a lot of students that come down. We have five students that are going to be working with us this summer as interns. We had a senior intern we have two graduates from High who both work for Channel 5 who just both received Emmys and they still come down and help us out. So, you know mmtv station studio is available and frequently used by kids at the schools.

▶ 23:55 Mark Garipay: The negotiated 5% between with the utility Verizon or comcast, right?

▶ 24:01 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: They each have to provide five percent in the

▶ 24:04 Mark Garipay: contract as it say whether the schools are going to get one percent or is that just what that within? You know,

▶ 24:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I'm not completely familiar with how the language is, but the way that it's set up is this the peg the public access station gets 80% and the schools get 20% after that big 5%

▶ 24:28 Speaker 3: No more questions. Just I'll ask

▶ 24:30 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: a quick question. Just as you know, we we are the council or second Council to be more online than in person and which certainly led to a lot of information about how technology does or doesn't work for all of us. I understand there's some plans for upgrades to this space to allow us. Could you talk a little bit about that? And when that might come online given that we're well we are we are hoping we we do Kind of squirrel away some of our funds every year in anticipation of big major projects that wouldn't be covered under our annual budget and we hope to be able to do retrogrades to all of this this whole system at City Hall within the year probably to the tune of around 100,000. I think when your IT director speaks to the fiber optic grant that you're getting that will also help with linking all of the other Municipal all of the other municipal buildings together, but yes mmtv will bear the cost of the upgrade to this to this facility. Thank you. Any other questions?

▶ 25:44 Jen Grigoraitis: What is the will of this committee Council jamalading motion to recommend? Suggestion we have a motion to recommend made by counselor. Jamal Dean seconded by counselor Karm chady. Is there any discussion Seeing none Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the role?

▶ 26:00 Speaker 1: Councilor Eccles. Yes Council. Gerepe. Yes councilor Dean. Yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Counselor Carm Shady. Yes.

▶ 26:10 Jen Grigoraitis: President zinella. Yes and chair Grigoraitis. Yes. Seven yes seven. Yes, so that will be recommended for passage to the full Council next week. Thank you so much for being here and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you very much for taking this out of order and I appreciate your service. I know it's not an easy job. We love spending all this time together. Um, so I will return now to the top of our agenda and try to keep things in order. So next up we have order 2022-129 a transfer from Human Resource salary and wages zero one one five two one dash five one one zero zero zero in the amount of $2,000 human resource advertising 011522-520500. There was a memo provided in relation to this transfer.