City Manager OBrien

Last night, Aug.5,2008, WCCA joined others attending the Cable Advisory Meeting.
T&G's Nick Kotsopoulus also was and wrote about it.
link to T&G

The meeting was one of the better ones. There was much good debate, as any healthy public meeting would include.

The committee came to decisions regarding what they will recommend to the city Manager among such items covered was the distribution of PEG funding
including a capital grant and franchise fees. The current formula 60-20-20 was recommended for both capital and franchise funding allocations. This was the same as in the past contract. The question is the government channel and the educational channel combined may have a surplus of over a million dollars balance remaining from the last contract. WCCA argued that under the current formula the 40 percent split between the city and educational channel is much more than needed. WCCA has been the only entity to demonstrate quantitative need for increased funding and certainly facilitates a much large aspect of the community. Unless the city manager see his way to increasing WCCA's share of the franchise revenue and capital, given the short term of the contract, it is highly possible the current level of services WCCA provides to the citizens of Worcester will be negatively impacted. The best thing to come out of the meeting, we felt, was the committee's recommended definition for "local programming": as any video production involving a person who is a citizen, student or employed in the city of Worcester. More to come.
Thanks for your suppport everyone. Stay tuned...