Okay, we're going to get started in just a minute. Just testing to see if that fixed my audio issue. Sounds like it did. >> Yeah. >> Can you hear me? Okay. Can the folks in the virtual room hear me? Okay. >> Yes. Can is my sound on?
>> Yes, Peter, we hear you. We see you. >> Okay. We're going to call the meeting to order in just a moment. >> Hi there, Peter. >> Hi. All right. I was waiting for one more. Um, but I
don't see I don't see John just yet. I'm going to go ahead and um call this meeting of the cable television advisory committee to order on April 30th at 11:32 a.m. This meeting is being held in the town room of Ammerst Town Hall and
also uh via the Zoom platform. Um and as a reminder, this meeting is being recorded. Since we have members joining us virtually, we will go ahead and do a roll call. Um, I'll get us started. So,
uh, Brianna Sunridge, chair, present. >> Fred Civian, present. >> Peter Bareric, present, virtually. >> Rachel Figur, present virtually. >> And we have uh Sean Hannon, IT director, also in the room. uh town manager Paul
Balkamin will not be available to join us at this particular meeting. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. We did our uh call to order. Next, we are going to Let me just
open our agenda so I can uh get us through the items. Next would be public comment. >> Public comment. Thank you. My my internet's still working. Um so we'll pause for for public comment. We do not have any members joining us from the
public in person in the room. Sean, do we have any virtually? >> We have zero virtual attendance. >> Okay. So I'm going to assume that means no public comment at this time. and
we'll move down to the the next item which is related to public comment. It did come up um as an aside from a member who did attend one of our last meetings um and we decided to put it on our agenda um to kind of maybe hear some
some thoughts from the committee but also from staff. So, uh, we wanted to discuss the process for members of the public to contact or send inquiry to this committee outside of any public comment period or public hearings. Um, I
believe there currently right now on the the website it points to you, Sean, as a person to contact. >> I believe so. And it was just a quick discussion to see if um if there was any need to do anything additional to that or if Sean felt comfortable fielding
questions for the committee. But I'll open that up. Um and Sean if you wanted to start and share what thoughts you had on that. >> Yeah. So we have a few things we can do with this. Um the last iteration of this committee,
cable advisory committee 10 years ago, what we did was we did a distribution list. So um members of the public could email to cable ammerism.gov and it would get that email would get sent to members of the committee's
personal email addresses um and just they they would get a copy of it. Um, I think that works pretty well. Um, the challenges we run into with email and public committees and everything else is
everything here um, falls under open meeting law and and public records. So any communication that you have as a member of this committee is considered a public record, a public document and you
could be um asked to produce that email. So if Briana sent an email back to a member of the public who had a question about it, any anybody could come to the town and ask for a copy of that email or
or what we typically see is ask for any emails sent to or from this case it' be to or from Bana related to cable advisor committee. it gets to be a burden on
on people who do not have a town email account. Um because then you're searching through your own let's say you have Gmail, you're searching through your own Gmail to produce that. We get the requests on a pretty regular
basis and typically the the it's related to town council and town counselors have town provided email addresses. And so when we get an email, when we get a request for any emails to or from town
council related to the field of the high school, we're able to do a search within the email system and the town produces it and there's no there's no expectation, no burden on the counselors to have to do that. Um, so I guess the
reason I'm saying all this, u, I think Briana, having previously worked here, uh, is pretty aware of a lot of this. It it I I would recommend against using your personal email to respond to
some of these requests, um, respond to the emails. But if you want if if it makes sense for any comments from the public to automatic go to everybody, we can do that through the distribution list. Um the big advantage to that is
then that is archived um by the town because it passes through our system. So anybody who come and ask comes and asks for all the emails sent to the cable advisor committee, it's something we can easily produce um as a town. Um we we
produce it and there's no there's no burden on the the members of this committee. Um so if you if you want that um it's a it's a good avenue to hear from the public. They can email it and
I'm all but certain cable ammerse.gov is still available. So, we could we could do cable at ammersema.gov if people wanted to get that. I would just recommend people are cautious or or
I would recommend replying to the person's email from that from that email address. And then obviously the other part to that is under open meeting law don't reply to everybody on the committee um because we don't want to have a >> right
>> deliberations outside outside of an open meeting. So >> well one thing that I I was thinking and I think there was some maybe precedents for other committees that I was aware of in Ammerst is perhaps I like that idea of having set maybe setting up that email address that forms as a
distribution list. Um perhaps it goes to relevant staff and the chair um to to limit that potential and then any issues that need to be brought to the um full committee can can be put on the agenda or or shared within uh public meeting
>> laws at our discretion and I think that might be a straightforward way to go but if anybody has any thoughts on this committee I'm happy to hear them now Peter you've got your hand. >> I I have no thoughts but just a
question. Uh if we if we do this, which sounds like a good idea, uh if if a question comes up uh and I have some idea about a response to the question, if I send that to you
and and then you send it to whoever has asked the question, uh does that keep it within the framework of the town email? If I guess one way of putting it is to say that uh is what would would all correspondence
uh within the scope of the distribution list even if it came from my personal account? Uh would that still be easily accessible by the town if someone asked for uh for emails?
>> Yes, I could answer that. If you CC me, um, my email address, my my account is archived and so it would it would make it easy to retrieve and I'm a non- voting member, so I don't
count towards a quorum. So it >> it makes it easy if you CC me, >> you're replying to Briana, but but CC me, then you're not you're not replying to a quorum of the committee. Um, but we also get we we capture that email so we
can we can produce that in in a request. >> Yeah, >> that that that sounds terrific. Uh, and it seems to me that individuals on the committee should not be in the business of replying to to to questions from from
constituents. Uh, that should come from from Briana or the town manager or Sean. Uh but but I think it's good for us to know what the questions are. So I I like the idea of a distribution list that would enable us to know what they were.
>> Okay. If does anyone else have any other other thoughts? >> What I'm hearing is um incoming will go to Shawn. um outgoing would go from the chair and draft comments would go to Shawn um with a or the original to the
chair with a CC to Shawn so we can preserve public record. >> Yeah. And I think the only other distinction to that is I think what Briana was asking is that incoming would would go to um Briana as the chair. Um
it could it could go to the town manager if he wants a copy of it or the town manager list and then and then me. >> Yeah, >> that makes sense. >> Yeah. And and I think functionally it sounds like it has the the capacity to set up those
inboxes and create the distribution list as we decide here um and to update the website with the address. The other good thing would be that, you know, in the upcoming uh engagements that we have with the public, we'll be able to put that
address um as a contact method for people to reach out or ask questions. >> Yeah. >> Um so I think maybe maybe what we could do is um it sounds like cable at am.gov
was used in the past. >> Um we could potentially try that again. And maybe maybe for this first launch of it, we set it up the distribution list so that it comes through as we said to the to the chair and to and to Sean. Um
and then we can figure out then how to distribute the relevant questions to the rest of the board um without running a foul on potential um open meeting law
>> deliberations because that's the only thing that I'm concerned about is accidentally replying all happens to all of us happens to me more than I'd like to admit and we don't want to get anybody in that position where we're uh running a foul of that
any questions, concerns, changes to that between now and the the time we we meet next? If if if I'm understanding what you're doing, uh what you're proposing, any questions would come to you and
Sean, uh not to other members of the committee. And uh and we would only know about them if you shared them with us. But if you share them with us, then we're back in the same situation of uh of of
potentially violating the open reading law if if we reply individually to somebody. Uh but on the other hand, it seems to me we are grown-ups and perfectly capable of knowing that if we got the question initially uh not to
reply to it and to or to make anything any replies we made to you copy to Shan so there'd be a record. So, I'm I'm not sure that I mean, it seems to me a benefit to have everyone on the committee aware of what questions people are asking, not to have to wait till the
next meeting to find out. easier for you than having to forward things which if seems to me to be a potential pain in the neck uh if a lot of questions come in and just we have to be disciplined and and keep keep our fingers off the
keyboard and and accept information but not reply to it. >> Yeah. Okay. I I think that's and I see Rachel has their hand too so I want to hear uh Rachel's thoughts on this if possible. >> Yes. Yeah. Um, I just wanted to It's not
a problem for individuals to reply to members of the public. It's a problem if committee members reply all because it um at least in school committee world, it's it's usually important and helpful to let to to respond and let constituents know that you're hearing
them. Um and often school committee e every school committee member will reply individually. Um but not all because if we're replying all that that's either the potential for
open meeting law violation or the potential for the optics of such. Um so I just wanted to clarify that. I don't feel strongly about either way but I do think I think it would be fine for us to have a list serve kind of model. I am comfortable, Rihanna, with whatever you
prefer though. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, it sounds like we're we're hearing from members that they'd prefer to get the emails in with the knowledge that we're um you know, not going to be replying all and creating a forum uh via the email thread
and that um if a response is warranted, then then we can coordinate that through through the chair position. Um, but that members would prefer to hear the questions or see the questions as they come up in our email to the email address is what I'm hearing.
>> Yeah, that sounds good. I think the only clarification I would add is that replying to all doesn't violate anything. Uh, it just makes everything more open to as it should be to any public request. And and maybe what we can do is just um
you know before we activate the the distribution list, we can um I can pull down together a couple of bullet points with the help of maybe Sean and the the town manager team of just those quick reminders of what's >> yeah, >> you know, how we should um function with
that to to to stay in line with uh public records and open meeting laws. >> That sounds great. >> Okay, great. So, it sounds like Sean, maybe you'll be able to handle setting that inbox up. Um, the only
time-sensitive thing with that is that, and this is something we'll talk about next, is the series of public hearings. Um, I'm going to be sending some materials to town staff to get that posted. Would it
be too soon for me to include that as an email address with the idea that it might get posted in the next few days? >> Yeah, I'll get it activated now. And >> don't want to rush you, but just >> if we're going to try to get the benefit of it. >> Okay. >> Yeah, the email address will be active
in minutes. So, I just have to have add everybody's address to it. >> Awesome. Okay. All right. So, I think that takes care of that item. uh we will now have a mechanism for board members to hear from members of the public outside of
meetings and public hearings. Um we can move on then to discussing the ascertainment process timeline and next steps. Um if you are following along this meeting live with us or afterwards this agenda is posted on the town
website as well as any uh meeting materials that we'll reference and review today. Um I do have those available. I can put them up on the screen if it would help members. Um but the first item is the public hearing
details and the date and time for that. I have some updates on this. Um, this board had decided on Thursday, May 14th at 6:30 p.m. in this
room um to have the first of two public hearings. Um, I learned today that the town was not able to get the um the meeting posted with the legal notice
in time for that. However, on speaking with the town manager, he recommends that we still can continue with this as long as our subsequent public hearing does get the public noticed um posted for the legal notice. Uh so, we want to
just pause and and talk about that. We do have the room reserved. We do have all members available and scheduled for that. Uh it's the town manager's recommendation that we continue with that um public hearing with the caveat that it would be uh one of two which we
had already discussed and that the second um occurrence of that public hearing would need to uh the staff would need to get that posted within the legal notice uh specifications. So I'm just going to pause there to see if there's any
questions on anything I just said. Um, questions, comments, concerns? >> Sounds good to me. Sounds good. >> Okay. >> I just want to confirm. Um, I I wrote this in an email somewhere. Um, would folks like for Ammerst Media to cover
those? >> So, so this is a decision we would probably need to discuss. So we haven't um the physical space for that meeting is reserved. We as a committee can
decide whether that this first um public hearing is entirely in person um and have the perhaps the hybrid option for the the second public hearing that gets the legal notice. We can decide that. Um, I do think that we would need a
little bit of um support, which I imagine Sean would be able to perhaps u provide for us if we were to do this as a hybrid um occurrence for the first one. So, I guess Rachel, to answer your question,
does it impact Amoris Media's coverage of the event if it were just in person versus had a Zoom option? No. Is the Is the town room the location? >> Yes, the town room's the location. Uh,
so we have that booked for 6:30 p.m. 2 weeks from today. >> Great. No, it doesn't. Um, Ammeris Media will do the same thing regardless. >> Okay. >> So, um, upon speaking with the town manager, he
he did recommend that we continue forward with this, you know, first of the public hearings date and time. Um if anybody feels strongly that it should this this one should be a hybrid or a blended um option that also allows
members to to join um remotely. The concern was that or not the concern but the um a thought that the town manager had shared was that if we do a blended option members it would be suggested
that members who are in person have a device of their own so that they're being captured um on the screen clearly. Um so that would be the only thing to consider. I think >> I I feel I feel as though I have no no experience of the pros and cons of
hybrid versus in-person meetings. I mean to me just a gut feeling is I much prefer in person uh because trying to manage a meeting w with w with with with us plus some unknown number of people
some of whom are in the room some of whom aren't sounds really hard. uh but others of you on the committee I think have had much more experience so I would defer to you. >> Thanks Peter. And I I do think you know if we I think it is important that we
opt op offer a virtual or hybrid option if it at one of the public hearings if if not both. So, if we wanted to just be in person for this first one in 2 weeks, we would then just try to commit to
having a virtual option for the the subsequent legal notice public hearing that we have yet to schedule. >> I mean, I have no objection to a hybrid format for both meetings if if if those of you with experience of such things
think it's a good idea. I was wondering which would be um more effective for the public and at least in my experience and and not in Amoris but in other towns having hybrid meetings um tended to increase public participation and if we're out
off if we're looking for public participation in our public hearings hybrid would be way to go. That said, a secondary important consideration would be technologically whether we can bring it off or not. And for that, I kind of defer for to Sean and the town as to how difficult it is to pull it off. It may
not be we may not be able to do that for this first one. Uh but my bias would be based on maximizing public participation is to have a hybrid meeting in person and virtual. Any concerns on the technology that would I mean I know it
happens quite often every two weeks in this room. So >> it happened. Yeah. I mean this this meeting is hybrid. The uh council meetings every every council meeting we've had in the past six years or so has been well it was it was virtual and then hybrid since since it came back. So
it's not a it's not a challenge at all if we're in the if we're in this room. >> Not a challenge at all. >> Okay. Okay, with that being said, and I think it's a good point um that Fred brought up that if we can do it, we should do it. Um so if if we unless
there's any um contrary opinion, I think we'll when I work with town staff, I will ask that a link um to a virtual webinar be included with the posting so that we can have both options. >> So noted,
>> right? >> Yep. Agreed. All right. The other piece that's related to this, because we we still do need to have um that public hearing that does receive the the the legal notice and the posting um which
the town needed a little bit more time for. Do we want to discuss andor propose a date for that second uh public hearing that is going to serve as our required
um public hearing with the legal notice that goes along with it. Um we we are you know backing up against a very specific deadline and I know we are trying to accommodate the potential slowdown in the summer or travel in the
summer. Um, but I'm thinking even perhaps June for the for the kind of official or second public hearing. Um, but I'm would love to open up the floor to to hear from folks. Um, but it might be a good use of our time today to get a
couple of potential date options for me to run past town staff for meeting locations. So, with that being said, um May 14th would be the first public hearing.
Perhaps sometime in June um is what we could target for our second uh public hearing. I'm told Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays are usually better for this room, but I know Rachel has uh shared some good
intel with me about the school committee meetings. I don't know if they are meeting throughout the summer. Uh Rachel, if you don't mind chiming in. >> June is still school committee meeting time. You said June, not July, right? Just check. >> Yeah, June. >> Okay, thank you.
um June of of those the Wednesday would be best for Ammeris Media to be able to broadcast them. >> So a Wednesday in June would be better to get coverage and or avoid any
>> school committee >> commitments. Okay. So with that being said um that that kind of narrows it down. That's really helpful. Rachel, thank you to uh the Wednesdays in June of which we have four. We have June 3rd,
the 10th, the 17th, and the 24th. Um, I' I'd recommend, but I want to hear from folks to to do it earlier than the end of June as um, you know, school schools in the area, high school, middle school, elementary schools in the area get out
on the the 18th and we might start really losing people to to summer vacation, including myself, um, after that date. So if if it's okay with everyone, I would suggest the 3rd, the 10th, and the 17th as dates for us to potentially check our schedules against.
>> Yeah, I would agree with the 3rd or 10th being of those two. >> So for me, I'm especially if it's another evening meeting, um any of those dates would work for me.
>> Same with me. I slightly prefer 10th and 17th over the third, but I'll decide it's best to be okay for me. >> Okay. >> The third the third and the 10th are best for me. Uh the the 17th uh runs into my granddaughter's wedding uh which
I am eager to attend. So uh >> we'll allow it. I think >> the 10th the 10th is my preference is the 10th over the third and it sounds like that was best for someone else also. So could we settle on that? >> Yeah, I think that aligns. We just kind
of triangulated that date um based off of everybody's preferences and availability. So, what I can do is just check with town staff now for an available space. It certainly gives us enough lead time for them to take care of their public uh legal notice posting
requirements. So, um Sean, do you have any conflicts with that as a as a date as it stands? >> June 10th works for me. And I'll look at that town room calendar for you. Now, >> I won't book yet, but I will at least
look to see that nothing shows as booked in here. Yeah, the only thing it looks like Angela has something booked in here till 3:00 p.m. that day. So, we just whatever whatever setup may have to be moved
after that. Um, >> yeah. >> Okay. >> Appears to be available right now. So, >> so if I move fast, I might be able to then secure it for >> So, I'll put that on my to-do list to to to handle offline in between our next meetings, but I will let the committee
know, including our member u who's not here with us today, just to confirm um that that works uh for them. But we'll we'll go with June 10th. Um the meeting in two weeks is at 6:30 p.m.
>> Yeah. And actually that works out well because June 3rd and June 17th planning board isn't here. So it was going to be June 10th anyways. >> It was meant to be. >> Perfect. >> All right. So that's great. So we'll go for for June 10th and um I'll make sure
that everything that the town needs to get that um posted will be taken care of. And it would actually be good if we can um as they go to post the the first of the public hearing in two weeks. I I'd absolutely
like for them to let folks know that it's the first opportunity. The second opportunity would be June 10th should we get that. Um >> and that way people can decide between the two >> which to go. So hopefully everything works um
in our favor there. Any other comments on on public hearings, date, time, questions, concerns before we move on to reviewing the community survey? Awesome. Okay. So, next, and I I can share this on my screen if it's helpful
for the members at home. Um, we're going to review some materials, and I'll let uh Fred speak to these, but we have a community survey. um document to review. I'm going to pull that up on the screen now. And um let me
see if I can just share this. Give me one second. All right. Share my screen. Okay. So, for anybody following along um at home or later or for the members
in this room and virtual, I've got um the draft document prepared by Fred here, the cable TV advisory committee surveys issue paper. So, Fred, I'd love for you to kind of take it away. Whoops. I don't want to zoom in too close. Um
does anybody have any issues seeing the screen at this time? All good. Okay. >> Okay. Um, thank you Rihanna. Um, what I tried to do was to put together our thoughts from our discussion at our last
meeting about a survey. Well, um, my recollection of what we discussed at the meeting was having a fairly short survey. It could be based on the information that we already have from a lot of other town surveys and that we um tie our questions that we ask on the
survey as much as possible to um contract issues that the town manager um believes are important in his negotiations. So what I did was try to separate these different things out into issues. First issue being what
descriptors are we using for cable TV uh when we're asking people if they're um their opinion about their service. Um and the second would be whether we're we would have a range or a binary scale. Strongly recommended binary scale. It's
asking people if they're dissatisfied or satisfied. So for example in the survey the question of value for money people would check either satisfied or dissatisfied with that. Um how much information to gather it kind of went
round and round on this. The um ideally we would have a representative survey but to do that we would have to gather a lot of information from the survey respondents and then compare that to the population that we're surveying. Um,
another way to get representativeness that we talked about in passing two meetings ago was to ask the cable provider to send out the survey to all their subscribers. And that's something that would be, I
imagine, would be uh we'd have to be careful about asking that. We'd have to talk with the town manager to make sure that that would work. Okay. we'd have to have some um a way of for people to be able to respond that preserve their anonymity that also kept the information from a
cable provider too. So that and it would provide it would give us a lot of information that we would then need to analyze. So the workload for that would be would be high. But assuming that we're not going to do that sort of thing um asking about some information at
minimum ask if the person lives in Ammerst or not. We may want to ask how long they've lived in Ammerst too. We may want to ask um age. People may be interested in gender identification. I don't the core questions that are important I think for the survey are uh
if you live in Ammerst and if so how long have you lived here? We could add more in our discussion um coming up. The fourth issue were draft questions for the survey. What I tried to do there was to mirror as much as possible the surveys from the last time around and
from other towns to make sure that they're honed in as much as possible on the questions that we uh we want to have people answer. Um so the I think the process for us to go through would be to discuss discuss about each of these
issues. I'm fine with keeping track of those things and making a further um changes to this draft the draft questions and and could draft up a survey. We also ought to talk about how we're going to conduct the survey and I need to defer to other people that know
a lot more about how to do surveys because I uh really don't know how to do how to do surveys. I like them. But um anyway, so wanted to open open for discussion to go through these issues. Maybe take them just one at a time and see what people
think about the pick list. Um hopefully we've had time to be able to look at this and also see what questions what topics are also in some other surveys and see if we want to add or delete any of these. So back to you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you so much, Brad. That's such a a
structured way to approach this. So, I appreciate your your time and effort to organize those thoughts. I'll just say one thing before opening it up to the other members. I did have a a discussion with um a staff member on the town manager team about survey tool options
and and process. Um it had been true in the past and maybe Sean has a different thought about this um that we did have access to different survey mechanisms and public engagement tools that we no longer have access to. So, in speaking with the staff in terms of dissemination
and and survey tool that is used, it's been recommended that we really have Microsoft forms is is what people have been using right now that the town has that is free and not something additional they'd have to um pay for or organize. So, when it comes down to
method and dissemination, we're kind of going to be moving towards that very likely. Um but the but the staff um here have been using that with success. Um obviously it doesn't have the same power as a uh like a Qualric survey tool or
something like that, but that is the universe we're working within. Um and we will have help to disseminate that um as we as we choose. So I'll just say that you know that's a later kind of end result kind of um piece not necessarily speaking to these issues but just just
so folks know. Um but otherwise I do see hands. I see Peter and Rachel in that order. So feel free Peter. Well, I find it hard to think about a survey without pre thinking first about how the results
are going to be analyzed. Uh because uh you know reading individual each individual's having each of us read individual response uh is is clearly not manageable. Uh so do do we have any
information about how to analyze this? I mean, I I'm used to a world of surveys mostly about things like student satisfaction with college life or with teaching evaluations where in the best situation you've got machine readable
responses uh and you you end up with quantifiable information. Uh is Microsoft forms which I'm not familiar with uh amanable to producing that kind of of information? >> Yeah. So, you know, as someone um who
has used that tool in in previous, you know, previously here at the town and in my current um roles, I mean, it's definitely doesn't have the same capabilities as some of the purpose-built survey uh platforms.
However, depending on the nature of the questions, um not that we would it would exclude us from asking qualitative or open-ended questions, it does have um some features built in to analyze some
of those for us. the question what I don't think it does very well which would then you know put some I don't want to say burden but some responsibility on the members of the the board andor town staff would be those more open-ended qualitative questions.
Um and then I'll I'll certainly see if Sean has anything he wants to add to that. But it does handle questions um like ratings and scales and things like that um fairly well. Again, it's not a paid survey type of a tool, but it does.
And maybe we can even share an example of uh a previous town survey that used Microsoft forms. I'm sure we could probably get something like that if it would help board members get a better sense of what that looks like for the analysis phase of the
survey. Um but I can say with confidence that it does handle those more quantitative scale of related questions quite well. Does does the lifting for those again where we would need to um remains to be seen or we would need to have a little bit more responsibility
would be the qualitative um open-ended responses that we would get. Sean, do you have anything to add in your experience with Microsoft forms? Is that >> not really? I mean, yeah, basically if it can dump to an Excel spreadsheet, so if you can deal with it in Excel, then
it it works pretty well. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> And Rachel, uh, Peter, it was that's a very good point. I'm glad that we we've been talking about that. I'm glad that you brought that up. ju just just to follow up before letting Rachel uh
speak. Uh I think it would be very helpful to to share with the committee a sample of of a survey done in that manner because it would then help us think more clearly about the format of of questions. uh and uh the other issue
uh which I don't have a strong opinion about is do we need to worry about issues of statistical significance and uh if so is is there anyone who knows how to do that I don't uh but uh if it matters then we should find someone who
does. Yeah, and and that's that's a good point, Peter. That's certainly a concern, I think. Uh and we can bring that up with the town manager. As we discussed at one of our previous meetings, there's not any budget or funds or kind of resources set aside for
this particular um engagement. So we we should probably um try to work within um that understanding that we won't necessarily have additional resources in order to um you know secure
a statistically scientifically reliable survey sample. >> Um if I may, that's what I was trying to get to with the issue of representativeness. We um one uses those tools to be able to show that the survey
from a small number of people accurately reflects within margins of error the population that's being surveyed. Um my unin relatively uninformed opinion about surveys is we're not going to be close
to that. My question for the committee is if we do want to do that sort of thing, we are that's a decision to include u more questions on the survey and to avote devote a lot more time and
energy to um analyzing the survey. What we would have without that is a snapshot, a view and anecdote um anecdotal information. Um to me at least it's I don't know that we have the since
we don't have budget we don't have the tools it'd be very difficult for us to be able to gather enough information to show >> thank you Fred really good point uh Rachel
>> um I I was going to say what Fred just said um maybe like from a different angle just I I I think it is a reasonable expectation for us as a committee to have that we will get
pretty limited responses. Um I think even I I think that's just just what's likely and and that that should probably be our expectation going in. Um that was one thought and my second
thought was just um Ammeris Media can um put up like basically a commercial or kind of ad um directing folks on live TV and on our YouTube channels to complete the survey. Um so that's another just model of outreach
that we can that we have at our fingertips. >> That's excellent Rachel. Thank you. I think that would certainly extend the reach and I um and I know the town, you know, certainly has some methods and from which to do that as
well. So, I'd hope that we'd be able to tap into those. For example, um people do have survey fatigue members of the public. We did have just as an anecdote some really good success using um and the town has the same platform for their website. So there's even the capability
to have a, you know, a splash screen pop up to capture people as they visit the town site during our survey window to direct them to the survey, for example. So um I think hopefully we can use those methods and increase the response um
rate as well in addition to to tapping into Ammerst Media's channels as well. Hi John. >> Hi. I'm so sorry I had something come up last minute. >> Okay, so I just want to make a note that
our member uh John Milis has joined us at 12:17. Um if you're following along, John, we're talking right now about the survey. You should see um some issues organized by Fred. Um, we've kind of
been talking a little bit about um these issues here, but also dissemination of the survey, which tool um that we're that we're going to use. Um, so it sounds like we've got some things that we're going to work with the town on using their existing
channels. Promotion, we have a good um potential handle on. So, now kind of going back to more of the meat of the survey, um any any thoughts on any of the issues that um Fred has organized here? I know some of that is going to be
dependent on what's possible within the Microsoft Forms platform and that makes uh a lot of sense and I try to work with staff to get an example to share around with the group. Anything else we want to talk about at this time either that are
on this document here or otherwise? >> Peter, >> uh let me just express a preference for uh the maximum possible amount of quantifiable information on the survey and the the least possible amount of of
narrative or discursive information. It seems to me that we could think of the meetings and the survey uh as serving two different functions. The meetings are an excellent way of attack of of getting uh
non-quantifiable narrative accounts of how people feel about the cable television service. Uh and then we supplement it with a a survey uh which gives us uh more quantifiable information from a larger
number of people. thoughts. >> Um, so far the proposal is four questions. So far the proposal is four questions. Um, all of them qualitative, none of them or all of them quantitative, none of them qualitative.
One of the items that came up under issue four is if there are other questions we should add. So I was hoping that our discussion could today people have questions that they want to add, we ought to talk about those. But so far we're all quantitative. >> Good. Good. Thank you.
>> That's great, Fred. Thanks for reminding us of that. And if if if you're following along, I just moved down to those sample questions which are on the same document in case you um would like to review and didn't get a chance to before before coming to the session today. Um, so those are the proposed
questions. Um, and potential, let's see, I'm just going to go down a little bit here with potential responses. Um, I know that we're trying to limit our our qualitative kind of exposure on this mostly for the fact
that we don't necessarily have um a huge amount of support in order to analyze that. However, I would just hazard that we do include something um open-ended just for the sake of being able to to capture, especially those who might not
be able to make it to the meetings. Again, I don't know, maybe towards Rachel's point that we're going to have, you know, thousands of responses on this. Um so so the burden might not be too high but I do think um users also come to
expect having a a chance to even put some of their their thoughts um down that doesn't fit neatly into a a quant question. So I think these are great to have it mostly quantitative and um perhaps we leave a little breathing room
towards the end for an open-ended response. People might not take it, but it might be uh better to include than to not. >> That sounds good to me. >> Great. Um John Rachel, any
any suggestions? So, I think like what Fred was looking for was some feedback to potentially um get a next iteration that focuses more on the on the questions themselves so they can start to go into um the
town's available survey method. Is that is that right, Fred? You're looking for some feedback. So, any any other feedback on the questions that are in front of you? Um >> I have a question about questions. Um
Yeah, it's that's good that we are open to doing hypothetical hypothetically open to doing qualitative questions, but um what questions do people have? What would they add? What would you be curious to know about and looking through the um survey information that
we received from the other towns? There were questions about what example, what are specific reasons why you did not subscribe to cable. Um there are a lot of other questions about um do you have any comments on the service? Um those sorts of things. So I'm looking for a
little bit of guidance from the committee about what additional few qual quantit or qualitative questions we might add. >> And I think the the first one I I mentioned what are the specific reasons why you do not subscribe or you
discontinued your subscription would be great. That would be >> that I personally volunteer to help uh go through those questions. >> One one thing I've been hearing from from folks about a little bit is that
they canceled cable are paying for subscription services and realized that they're paying more for subscription services than um than they were for cable. I don't know quite how to put that into this model questions, but that like are
how are you paying I I don't know. That seems like a question though that that feels relevant for us. That's one that's on my mind. Um I'm interested in understanding um
if people how long people have been using cable in like yeah how long they've been using cable. My suspicion is that there's not folks who like just move here and are opting into cable but I'm curious about that and think that
might inform some information for us. Um those are two things that that maybe are >> that's great Rachel and I think um you know the how long question we can put that into a quantitative format as well so that it's maybe something that we can
separate out from the narrative and then your prompts on the other kind of open-ended pieces are are helpful framing that that last question. I would think >> I do see Peter's hand and then John >> I'd be very interested in questions
about uh requests for service or something something of the that would give them an opportunity to say how how long did it take before they resolved issues of uh of
getting repairs. uh and also how long it took uh to make changes to their service if they wanted to make changes to their service. I'm partly asking this out of my own obsession with having spent four hours on the phone trying to to to add
to my service so I could give Comcast Comcast more money. But the the issues of of of the responsiveness to service requests seems to be a very important one. Yeah, it's great. Thanks, Peter. John,
did you have something? >> Yeah. Um, maybe you guys already discussed this, but I feel like maybe there could be a bit more detail on question D as to what educational programs or what kind of public events are generally on PEG programming because
I feel like if I'm responding to this and answering question D, I would want maybe a little bit more detail as to what that would be going to. Yeah, that's so you mean John? I think that's great. So when we talk about it on question D and we're referencing Ammeris PEG programming, we could say
for example school committee meetings X Y and Z and maybe get some examples from from Rachel and from Ammeris Media to put on that list. >> These are great ideas. Thank you. >> Like a kind of like bullet point list of just some examples I think would help
people. >> I think that's a great idea, John. And you know at the question level we can certainly do that. But one thing um you know that I for any survey we we have that kind of beginning page before you get into the questions to give a little
context. We could perhaps use some of that to define you know what PEG is and kind of just have a little intro before people get to the questions. Nothing too intimidating or long, but just to kind of set the stage for who we are, why we're asking what we're
asking, and what these items mean might be might be helpful to that same end as John mentioned. >> Okay, Peter, did you have something? >> Yeah, I I'm going to raise something uh and and then go quietly if no one's no
one else is interested. Uh I spoke to to to Paul Buckleman uh after our last meeting and he clearly is not interested at this point in the town of Ammeris taking on the job of trying to develop its own cable network for reasons that I
understand and I think are totally reasonable. Uh on the other hand, this survey may well be the only time in a decade that the town has an opportunity to the has an opportunity to assess whether or not there would be town
interest in a town cable network or such a thing possible. And uh I think uh if Paul approved it might be worth having something on the survey that of the form
the town of Ammerst at this time is not able to undertake a project like uh uh a townwide cable network. But if at some time in the future such a thing was possible, would you have have any interest uh in a townwide internet
network run by the town? >> I mean, the disclaimer would would be important. In other words, this is not do you want something like this now, but if a after after we build the town garage, after we build a firehouse, there's room for considering other
capital projects 10, you know, 5 years from now, eight years from now, would this be something of interest? >> Peter, you're saying town cable and town internet. Which one of those did you I >> I I mean I mean town internet. I town, not not not cable. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.
Um, and I'm sorry Brianna for speaking with us. >> No, no, actually it was it was my my my misspeaking. I I meant internet. >> Thank you. Thank you for claring.
>> Okay, so um let's see now. We we want to make sure we have um given Fred perhaps what he needs for the for the next iteration. And I'm happy to work with you on that, Fred, too, as we are moving closer to putting things into um the
platform that that we have available to us. Any any other suggestions on questions, tweaks to questions, things that would help in that getting us to that next uh iteration? And Fred, do you have any specific things you want to ask the committee members to help you
towards that end? >> No, this is getting from the committee. what I hope to get is advice about how to do the next iteration of the survey. >> So, one thing um that we can work towards, this will be kind of an offline
piece and I can coordinate with Fred on on this. Um perhaps I can even get you the transcript if it's helpful to see all the specifics um from this meeting. If there were any pieces during this conversation that we wanted to revisit, we can we can work on a um a next
iteration of this to bring to the committee members and to town staff. Um I'll just note that earlier on we had discussed having this kind of lined up and timed with some of the public hearings. Um, I don't think that that's
going to necessarily be the case, but we can uh use those public hearings to advertise that a survey will be coming. And so that is that is um something that we could use that time for as well. >> Go ahead, Peter.
>> I I think we we could also use the public hearings as ways of enriching our sense of what kinds of questions we might want to have on the survey. >> Yep. that's something that we can uh use any feedback. >> We we we we might want to not finalize a
survey before we've had the public hearings. >> Yeah, I don't think that that's going to be the way that it it ends up working out. And I think that came up at the last meeting that we we'd be able to take maybe some lessons learned from at least the first of the two public
hearings to >> to inform the survey. >> All right. Anything else on survey before we move on to our next agenda item? I think we're kind of breezing through. Fred, are you you have what you need for now?
>> Yeah, I'm all set. I I'll write up the notes to about this. >> Okay, so the rest of these items I know we're going to pause. We uh on our list is Amoris Media's uh business plan status update. We know that uh Rachel
and Ammeris Media are very very busy now. I want to hear from Rachel to maybe give an update on um on that gala and then any updates about that business plan. I know you wanted to maybe take a few minutes. >> Thank you. Um well, first anybody who
would like to is very welcome to be my guest at our gala which is on Saturday. Um it's Ammerst Media's 50th anniversary. Ammeris Media is the longest running um community media station in the country and it's a really exciting time. We're honoring Jim
McGovern. It it will and Monty Belmont is hosting. You'll get to see them do their thing live and there's some amazing performers coming. Um that's why I'm not with you today. It is a busy busy time. Um so thank you for handling
me being off ca off camera. Um but we are also kind of par parallel to our 50th anniversary work. Um we're engaged in a strategic planning process which is very well underway and Rihanna asked if I could have a business plan for this
meeting which I could not quite this quickly but um we are in process of developing a strategic plan alongside which a business plan comes. Um, so we I I guess I wanted to talk through with the committee what kind of timeline
you're hoping for, what you all had in mind by business plan. I know Brianna offered some samples which would be helpful for me to understand. Um, but I can speak to what timeline I can move on based on some of that.
>> Thanks, Rachel. So, um, if you're if you're free Saturday night, please talk to Rachel about getting your your tickets to the the gala. I mean, that's quite impressive to have the the oldest community media in the country. Um, maybe that works its way into to
some of our our promotion of our um hearings and whatnot and some of the engagements that we have. Um, any questions about the business plan process? And maybe Sean, was was the town part of the previous uh like how it
fits into the ascertainment process? I mean, not necessarily um in general Ammeris Media's business plan, their strategic plan. Was there any thoughts that you had or things that happened the last time around that the committee should know about?
>> Nope. This is um this is something new. I think it's um we had different we had a different attorney last time. Um and so I have no recollection of any um Ammerst media business plan being
presented as part of this process or anything like that. It was and in fact the last goound with this Ammerst media was was I I would say largely uninvolved in >> this this part of the process and then
after the um contract the franchise agreement was signed with Comcast that's when the process of the town and Ammeris Media being negotiating a a contract renewal happened. Uh this time around it seems like the the two processes are are
kind of happening quote happening um in parallel and the um the business plan is I think a something that KP Law who's representing the the town in this case um is
is driving that. I I think that's that's my take on it. >> So different timing, different format than last time. So I guess um we did in the materials again for those who are uh watching this later or on the call now there are sample business plans that were provided
to us by KP Law which is the town's legal council in this um endeavor and those are online um as well as for for the the members. I guess for me I would just want to understand how if there we could be helpful as the committee members to this process for you Rachel
or and or Sean. Um I don't have any preconceived notions about what that business plan looks like or what it needs to be. But if there's anything that this this uh committee can do to support the process um as it relates to the ascertainment process, again I'm speaking for myself, but um perhaps the
others have questions or ideas regarding that. >> I can also kind of share like very legal view. Um, Ammerst Media historically relied somewhere around 80 to 90% of its
budget on cable funding. Um, over the years that's shifted to now more like 50 to 40 to 50% 50% maybe 50 to 60%. Um but the plan that I'm working out with a
strategic consultant is um that over the next 5 to 10 years Ammeris Media will move to relying more like 30% of our budget on cable funding because that funding is going down and because the organization is growing. Um, so part
part of what I w will be able to share and show is where that other money will be coming from and how that will align with our mission and growing strategy. >> That's great. >> That's that's like broad view. But do
folks have questions as I'm outlining that? >> I don't have any questions at this time. Um, other members. Okay. Well, that was really helpful update, Rachel. Thank you. Um, other
updates on ascertainment steps. I I myself do not have anything. I did not receive anything from the town manager for this specific uh spot on the agenda. So, quick look around the virtual room and this room. Anyone have any other updates?
No. Okay. Um, so next we have the confirm our next meeting occurrence. Um, according to what I have on my uh document here, that would be Friday, May 15th at 11:30. Um, is that
again, that's after the public hearing. So, we have the public hearing on the evening of Thursday, May 14th at 6:30 p.m. Uh, we had a planned committee meeting that next day. Any confusion, conflicts with anybody on
the call? No. Okay. So, you'll get um I'll work with the town staff to get that uh posted and the agenda and all those various things that happen um kind of between meetings and behind the scenes for that date. Um so, we'll be seeing
each other twice that week. Um all right. So, go ahead, Fred. >> Um just one question. We had talked about having a regular uh recurring meetings. Would the committee still want to try to meet every couple of weeks
after that May 15th just tenatively or? >> Yeah. So, we we did have that uh the clip at least according to now that we had we caught up with the day today as the the kind of out of uh out of that Friday schedule meeting. Um we talked
about having the the 15th and then every two two weeks um particularly through the through the summer. So that would in theory be the 15th, the 29th
and then the the 12th if we're talking about the next few occurrences. the the the 29th would be hard for me because uh it conflicts with a an amorous college reunion that I am partly responsible for. Uh but but but in a
pinch I could probably pull away from uh from the reunion for an hour and a half and and come on on Zoom. >> Okay. >> If that's good, you know, if that's good for everyone else, I'll figure out a way to to deal with it.
And I what I can do is um after we're done today and I can send a those dates out to the group as a reminder in case you can't check your calendars right now um and we can handle any scheduling,
you know, changes or or confirmations um through that process. But if if it makes sense at least for the next few meetings, I'll work with the 15th, 29th, and 12th, I'll send that around to the group to pull everybody and if we need
to uh pivot, we can if that works. >> Okay. >> Okay. Uh with the understanding that we will have that virtual option for folks who um can't make it in person. All right. So, next um we are going to
move to approving the minutes that were prepared by Fred. Thank you, Fred. Um you should have all received that a couple of days ago, but I do have it up on the screen in case there's any um anything you wanted to look at. And right now, we're just pausing to see if
there's any um corrections, omissions, anything that we need to add to this document. Um, so I'll give a second for folks to chime in on that or take a look at the document to see if there's anything you wanted to bring up.
Um, and then just as a reminder, we we will only be asking the members who were present at that last meeting to vote on it. So John and Rachel, you'll be you'd be off the hook for for this one. So, it's really just um Peter, Fred, and I
who have any corrections to this. Um I don't have any corrections to make. >> No corrections. >> Okay. >> Just just admiration >> and none no corrections in my draft from me.
>> Perfect. So, um can I get a a vote to um approve the minutes from the meeting on April 10th? >> So moved. Second. >> All right. All those in favor? I >> I
>> I >> Great. Okay. So, the minutes from the April 10th meeting are approved and those will get posted on the town's website um probably a little bit later today.
All right. So, to wrap up the rest of um these pieces, I've already got a volunteer for my next notetaker, Fred. um has done such a good job that he's got the job permanently unless somebody wants to fight him for it. Um so thank you Fred for that.
>> Welcome. >> Any other topics not anticipated um 48 hours in advance of the meeting that we didn't get to address yet today? >> Just massive gratitude to Fred for agreeing to be a notetaker. >> Absolutely. >> You're all welcome. I'm happy to do some work for the committee.
>> We appreciate that. All right. So if no other topics um I would then move to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor? >> Fred says I >> Peter says I
>> Yes. Rachel. >> Great. So this meeting of Amoris uh cable television advisory committee is adjourned at 12:43 p.m. on April 30th. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you Brianna.
>> Thank you. Yes.