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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-06-24-CAC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF JUNE 24, 2025 PARKER ROOM, TOWN OFFICE BUILDING (ALSO BY REMOTE PARTICIPATION) Call to order. Communications Advisory Committee (CAC) Chair Kenneth Pogran called the meeting to order at 6:32 PM and conducted roll call. Members Present: Kenneth Pogran, Chair; Bob Avallone, Shabbir Bagasrawala, David Buczkowski, Dorinda Goodman, Steve Kaufman,Nick Lauriat, Sreeni Chippada, Rita Vachani, David Becker (joined late) Members Absent: Smita Desai Quorum: A quorum of members was present. Others Present: Florence Delsanto (LexMedia); Vineeta Kumar (Select Board Liaison), Kerry Morris (Comcast), Bill August(Attorney;joined at 7pm) Materials Referenced: Minutes of the meeting of May 1, 2025 1. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes. Two typos in the previous meeting minutes were noted. The minutes of the meeting of May 1 st, 2025 were unanimously approved without corrections through a roll call vote. 2. Service Provider Reports Kerry Morris updated the committee that the Max MGM Plus and DVR package will no longer be available for purchase effective July 28h. Affected subscribers were sent a notice on their bills. This notice was also sent to the Select Board, although Ken pointed out that the letter was addressed to the "Town Council"whereas it should address the town's Select Board. Kerry noted this and will rectify. Kerry also clarified that the existing customers will be grandfathered into those packages i.e. they will continue to have them unless they called in to make a change. Anyone who wants to purchase this will now have to buy the Max MGM Plus and DVR package separately. Kerry also took the action to see what the price differential will be for customers who now want to buy this separately versus what they used to pay before in the package cost. Kerry agreed to follow up on this on email. Kerry also informed the Committee that Comcast has a cybersecurity presentation that they have conducted for the towns of Haverhill and Gloucester on phishing, malware, password attacks and impacts of digital crime. It's a 60 minute presentation that is open to the public. They are willing to do a seminar at the Lexington Community Center. The Committee also discussed that Astound in Rhode Island sent an email about going to a"cafeteria style" cost structure for picking individual channels. This has not been rolled out to Lexington customers yet. 3. Chairman's Report a. Introduction of Vineeta Kumar, new Select Board liaison. Every July the select board shuffles the assignments for Select Board committee liaisons. Vineeta indicated her excitement to work with the CAC. Ken welcomed her to the CAC and offered to get her up to speed on the committee activities. She also highlighted that the Council on Aging would be excited to get the seminar from Comcast on cybersecurity. b. Verizon license renewal public hearing Ken informed the committee that the Verizon public hearing, which is part of the ascertainment phase of the cable TV license renewal process, would start at the posted time of 7pm; the start time of other items on the agenda may be adjusted to accommodate this. c. Scheduling of next few meetings Due to personal travel plans Ken proposed September 1 Ph for the September meeting and 23rd of October for the October meeting, versus the regular 3rd Thursday of the month. d. Member reappointments Rita, Dave and Ken are up for reappointment, as their 3-year appointments to the CAC are expiring in September. Renewal notices will be sent out in August. e. Recording Secretary assignments Ken informed the committee that Shabbir was the recording secretary for today and also informed that the recording secretary assignments have been made for fall through next spring. New CAC member, Srini Chippada was added to the list for recording secretary. f. Last year for Ken Pogran as committee chair Ken indicated that this will be his last year as the committee chair. He would like someone else to take on the role as the committee chair. So, he asked the committee to consider this for the next meeting. He indicated that he would continue until November or December. g. New Select Board policy for conduct and decorum Ken indicated that a new Select Board policy for conduct and decorum was forwarded to the members. He advised everyone to read through that and take note of it. 4. Verizon License Renewal "Ascertainment" Public Hearing Ken noted that,prior to today's scheduled hearing, we had not received any comments from the public via email or postal mail to the Select Board office. A Select Board member suggested to Ken that we put a notice of the Verizon ascertainment in the "Link to Lexington" email that the Town puts out every Friday. Ken also indicated that the last thing we need to do for the ascertainment phase is to reach out to the Town Manager and the Superintendent of Schools as to whether they have any needs for the Verizon renewal license. Over the course of the summer, the licensing group will work to put together an ascertainment report with the goal of presenting it to the Select Board in July or early August. Based on the Select Board adopting the report, it will then become the basis of negotiating with Verizon for their license renewal. Ken has been in close touch with our outside cable attorney Bill August to help with the Verizon negotiation. 5. Update from Florence on LexMedia Joe Blatt and Jim Shaw will now co-chair the LexMedia Board. Jim is taking on the role of chair of the development committee. He will help raise funds for LexMedia. One board member, David Isely, resigned. LexMedia added three Board members : 1) Nick Hart, assistant coordinator for performing arts at Lexington High School, 2) Wa Wang, chair of the Lexington CAL, 3) Ting Feng, founding member of the new legacy cultural center, bringing up the total to 13 board members for LexMedia. LexMedia won some national awards for their productions that were given by the alliance of Community Media. These are hometown awards happening in Boston and Florence indicated she will be there to represent LexMedia. Florence gave updates on other activities that LexMedia covered. She also provided details of a summer camp that they are doing for kids. Florence and Kerry Morris of Comcast also discussed the possibility of recording the planned cybersecurity seminar and making it available on-demand. 6. Public Hearing Concerning Community Ascertainment Regarding Performance of Verizon At 7pm Ken called to order the Public Hearing for ascertainment regarding Verizon New England as a cable television service provider for the Town of Lexington. The hearing was recorded by LexMedia and is available for viewing on LexMedia's website. Ken turned the proceedings over to Dave Buczkowski, who provided details of the ascertainment process and also provided information as to how comments can be provided. Dave identified all the members of the committee members by show of hand who will be part of this negotiating group. Cable attorney Bill August also joined the hearing remotely and identified himself. Since there were no members of public attending, Dave opened the hearing to comments from committee members. Rita Vachani provided a presentation to the committee on the financial outlook and needs from a Town perspective with respect to Cable TV Franchise fees (PEG revenues). Rita provided background, current outlook of finances, projected capital requirements and our Verizon license renewal "ask". The committee then discussed the presentation. Ken mentioned that, at Bill's suggestion, we will keep the hearing open for written comments until July 8h at which point the hearing will close, although we can continue to receive comments from the public beyond that time as well. 7. Wireless Working Group Update Steve Kaufman provided a presentation on the meetings that wireless working group had with ATT, T-Mobile and Verizon. He also provided suggestions on next steps, i.e. follow up meetings with the carriers as well as discussion with the Select Board liaison on a potential RFP for a cell site to be constructed on Town property to improve coverage. The committee deliberated over the presentation and next steps suggested by Steve. 8. Complaints No complaints were received in the last month. 9. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Shabbir A. Bagasrawala Recording Secretary