Um, and you can let me know and I'll count you in when you're ready to get started. >> Okay, I'm ready. >> All right, we'll go live in five 4 3 2 1. >> Good afternoon. I'm Bernard Green, chair
of the Brookline Select Board, and this is a special meeting of the Select Board for the purpose of voting on cable television license renewal of Comcast um Inc.
Um let's see. Let's start off by um I see everyone's here. Let me start off by saying that this is a public hearing on Comcast's cable license renewal and is part of the cable license renewal process. Brookline's Comcast cable
license expires on April 30, 2026. Federal and state law require holding a hearing to allow the public an opportunity to comment on town and public cable related needs and Comcast performance. I might add that this is a
second hearing that we've held in the last few months. Uh an ascertainment hearing which is a major hearing was held in October. Um notice of this hearing was posted twice in the Boston Herald as required and on the town's
website. Copies of the legal advertisements are entered into the public record. We will provide any interested members of the public and other interested persons with an opportunity to submit input about what cable related needs are important to
Brookline and about how Comcast has performed under its existing license. Before proceeding with public comment, I would like to thank Brookline's Community Television Access Provider, Brookline Interactive Group, and Comcast for their participation and assistance
in the ongoing license proceedings, license renewal proceedings. In this hearing, the board will hear comments on all Comcast related matters to include customer service, license administration, and important local
studio needs, community programming, PEG access, and Comcast support for Brookline's local channels. Please try to keep your comments limited to three minutes. If members of the public or other interested persons wish
to provide comments following this hearing, they can send their comments to the board of town of Brooklyn care of Charlie, excuse me, Charles Young, deputy town administrator. Before proceeding to public comments, I'd like to welcome Comcast representative Angela
Holm Bar Lson and ask her to make some introductory comments on behalf of Comcast. Angela, >> good afternoon. Um, thank you, Mr. Selectman. It's It's honestly been um a fairly easy process. I've worked with a
great team from Brooklyn. Um, I attended one of the most polite um and friendly ascertainment hearings. I think I've I've attended in my time at Comcast. Um, it's been my pleasure to represent the company and my pleasure to work with your team here and uh we look forward to
continuing to work together over the next decade. >> Right. and we have um heard from our negotiating team how uh respectful and effective you have been in coming to an agreement that you addresses the needs
of both uh the town big and our residents as well as the needs of Comcast of course. So uh with that I'd like to um well thank you Angela for that but at this time I'd like to welcome the public to proceed with
public comment. Uh Charlie, do we have anyone uh waiting in the um queue to speak? >> Thanks, Bernard. We did we did not have anyone sign up in advance for public comment. So I'll just say this is a public hearing. If anyone in the audience wishes to speak, they can use
the hand raise feature on Zoom at the bottom of your screen. Now you can click raise your hand if you'd like to speak at this public hearing. Well, we have just 13 participants online, Bernard, and only a few members of the public among those. And nobody is raising their hand to speak at the
hearing. Okay. So, at this time, I would like to close the hearing and ask the select board members uh if they have any questions or comments. Uh but to start with, I'd like to say that um again, I
believe Charlie Young and the town's negotiating team have negotiated a a contract renewal that is very very beneficial and fair to the town, the Brooklyn Interactive Group and Brooklyn residents who use Comcast for their cable needs. We want to approve the
contract before the end of the year because after that uh we may have to negotiate with uh different uh negotiators uh from Comcast legal office um who are less experienced and capable than the team that we've been working with for years. Um so I hope uh you know
we can approve uh today and um you know get this contract on the road. So, any comments from the select board? Um, >> Michael, um, I'm sorry I didn't raise my hand, but um, I have one, but if you want to start, that's fine, too.
>> Yeah, Michael raised his hand and, um, start then go to you. >> Great. Uh uh thank you Bernard and also thank you to uh uh Miss Barson and to our negotiating team for bringing this contract uh uh to us um in time for us
to get it uh approved before the end of the year and I'm looking to um uh join in approving this contract as well. Um I just have two questions um one for town council um and one for the negotiating team. Um, and I'll just ask them
sequentially. Um, and the first to, uh, town council. Um, based on your review of the contract and any other information, do you have any concerns or feedback that should be considered by the select board prior to, uh, approving the contract?
>> Uh, Joe Kalan, uh, town council. I do not uh given the um relationship that we've had with Comcast over the years uh this you know has built upon that relationship but also where this is a task that we only do every 10 years. Um
we brought on uh Bill August uh who is an expert representing municipalities in this area. So Bill has done the the uh bulk of the legal work. Uh I've had the opportunity to work with him uh in the past, but uh there is no legal concerns
that I have, none whatsoever. >> Bill, do you have anything to add? >> Uh I would just note by way of very brief highlights, the um annual funding is the maximum
permitted by law. uh and it's u identical to what is in the existing license for the last 10 years. So with respect to the lion's share of the uh financial support which is really
one of the main uh concerns in the renewal process there's no change we're all familiar with it and it's the maximum the 5% of gross annual revenues um well I have no legal concerns about that I do note there's a a marketplace
concern we all have to keep our eyes on as Comcast loses subscribers in the future. There is some slight slippage in gross revenues. So, the payout on that does eb down somewhat and towns are looking at alternative revenues if
needed to make up any decline in that. I would also add that uh one novel, one new feature in this license that was not in the prior license uh is a nice legacy for the uh local
channels which are uh you know important to the community. You get unique uh municipal meeting coverage, community uh activities. It's invaluable especially in this age of like fake media. But
we're getting our first ever highdefin uh local channels. So the three current standard definition public educational governmental access channels will be actually upgraded one to high definition
and two to a higher resolution than currently uh called u SDSDI uh standard definition standard digital interface. So there's an improvement in the channel resolution. Um and uh the
capital funding is uh you know there are two buckets of funding the 5% of gross and the capital funding. And the capital funding is um higher than Comcast is doing in other communities or at that level in light of their loss of uh close
to 25 30% subscribers. uh they are um chipping that down because that's spread out over the declining subscriber base and they don't want the pass through to be falling on a a you know a high number on a smaller
base. So there is some proportional decrease in that in the last five years proportionalizing the payout. So I'm very confident it's a very strong license. It also continues the existing license. We use that as the template.
Um, so 95% of it is status quo anti. We're familiar with it. It's worked for 10 years. And I'm grateful to uh Comcast for accommodating our request to use the existing license rather than their own current uh uh template which has uh is
weaker than the existing 10-year-old version. Um, >> thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. And and that and that brings me sort of to my second question um for the for you uh Mr. August. Um do you see any risk that Comcast um after the
restructuring after the new year after we approve this contract would choose to try to terminate this contract prior to it going into effect in an attempt to renegotiate the contract with better terms?
Uh I I don't see any uh legal basis for they're doing that. Under current law, there's no termination option. Um there are bills kicking
around the uh Congress that are want to sweep cable into a new category of broadband or put it under broadband bills that are aggressively deregulatory.
They were not passed last year, but as they say, no one is safe while Congress is in session. Um, but under current state of law, no. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, John,
>> thanks. And, um, thanks, Michael, for those excellent questions and and the very thorough answers. Um, so I just want to turn, uh, turn this around just a little bit. And uh Michael asked some very good questions on behalf of you know the town's interests in
this. Um what is it possible for someone maybe Bill is the best person um maybe um Angela uh to just sum up uh briefly um what might be the impact that customers will notice um the major 1 2 3
or four impacts that customers might notice as that are you know a change from um the current situation under the current contract. Well, I'll briefly say I'm not aware of any changes they will see except for the
upgrading of the channels uh local channels to high definition and SDSDI but that Comcast has I forget if it's an 18month window or or 24 months to do that although they will accelerate it if if we request it and and try to
schedule it but so other than that um I'm I don't see uh an impact yeah but I'd love to hear Angela's comment on that too. >> Um yeah, so it was 18 months um you know and and there between Comcast and um Brookline Interactive Group, there will
be notification to the customers of that channel upgrade. Um as as it always has been those the capital funding is um a line item in the customer's bills um that has always been identified. um that may fluctuate over the years, but there
won't be any immediate changes that that anyone will notice. That's just something that um fluctuates according to subscriber base. But >> right, >> I I think customers are very used to seeing that already. So, >> Right. Yeah. Well, that's a good point because the first five years are level
funded for capital at the 80,000 per year and that's the same as being paid out under the current license. But as Angela said, as there are fewer subscribers, that's amvertised over fewer people. So they may see a few
pennies added on each year as uh Comcast uh uh re recal recomputes um its uh the amortization of the capital funding. >> Okay.
Uh good. Uh, and um, one more question if I may, and u, Charlie, maybe you're the best person to answer this or or someone else who's here from town, administrative staff. Um uh did does this contract um in in the view of uh
Brookline Interactive Group BI um does it meet their requirements um and you know meet with their satisfaction in terms of how it impacts them and the revenue piece and the access to facilities piece and so on. So, we do have Jessica Smiser, um, executive
director from Brooklyn Interactive here to answer, but I will just say, um, we've been very appreciative to have Jessica involved, um, in discussions around these negotiations from the very beginning. Um, and, um, in we we've had good conversations about how this impacts their needs. And so, I guess
I'll turn it over to you, Jessica. >> Yeah, thank you, Charlie. Um, thank you for the question, John, and thanks for everyone on the team and select board and Angela for uh completing this negotiation. Um, as I've mentioned before, it is no surprise to us here at
BIG or in this sector that subscriptions going down means a lower level of funding um quarterly funding. And we have been working um very hard to create alternative forms of revenue. And one of the things we appreciate is the
continued level funding for the first five years of the 10-year contract so that we can continue to build out those alternative forms of revenue. That is something that is really uh a positive for us. And also the other um sort of status quo of the contract also is a
positive to us. Um in terms of the high definition, uh we've been working actually already on our signal flow for town meeting. Uh, and you you may or may not have noticed that the quality of the picture for town meeting was much better this time around than it had been in the
past. So, we're excited to continue to deliver a higher quality picture to customers um with these uh high definition and um higher level definition channel uh deliveries. So, thanks everybody.
>> Thanks J. >> Okay. Uh David, I see your hands up. Yes, thank you. Uh, so it's been mentioned multiple times by uh, attorney August and now by the director of BIG that we anticipate a decline in
subscribers from Comcast. Uh I've also been reading though that with the increase in uh exclusivity among various streaming services that some people are getting frustrated that whereas before they
could get away with maybe one or two streaming services for everything they wanted to watch, now they have to maybe subscribe for four or five. and there might be a tipping point where cable then seems like a better deal again for being able to have everything that somebody might want to watch. So, I'm
wondering whether some of these forecasts for uh declining Comcast subscribers might be uh looked at again in a different light at some point in the near future. Well, I've heard that um analysis, but I
but I haven't heard any conclusive uh projections based on that. So, I I think it's uh there's some moving targets. there's a lot of uncertainty and that as uh you know it's one of
those areas where we just admit admitting you what you do not know is the beginning of wisdom because the way uh the IP and the streaming will be uh shaking out no one really knows >> especially I would address that further
bill just to say >> yeah go ahead go ahead >> we haven't we haven't seen it happen yet if that were to happen I the the second um half of the license, it's a math formula. So that that capital would be adjusted automatically
based on the subscribership. So I I don't know how much re-examining would be necessary. The math would would take care of that essentially. >> Okay. Any other comments, questions from the slwood? >> Okay. While I'm still on this meeting, I
I just have to give the strongest possible thanks uh to Charlie Young and and Joe uh town council uh Joe Callahan. um as well as Jessica and Angela all
were like at every twist and turn and as you can imagine there were many in the drafting a 70page document with all kinds of uh updating um you know the the the responsiveness and diligence was uh
phenomenal and I thank the town select board for uh creating a team that enabled that. So, I'm just very appreciative working with uh your team. Thanks. >> Great. Thank you. Okay, seeing no other hands raised or
any other indication that people want to make comments, uh I'd like to now move to approval of the Comcast license renewal. Uh all in favor, please indicate by saying I. John Vancoyak
>> I. David Pearlman >> I. >> Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi. >> And chair votes I. Thank you everyone. >> Now there is a draft motion to state a couple of basic reasons for
the um approval like very generic such as Comcast having the financial and technical capabilities and and it Charlie do you have that handy? The reason I mention that
um is it's good to have uh um it's on the second page of the opening statements uh document. >> Got it, Bill. I missed that. Sorry. Uh >> okay, I could read that or have you read it. It's just nice. >> Bernard, if it's in front of you on the
second page, it may be worth reading that aloud. >> It's worth reading it. It's worth reading. called me about this before the meeting and I didn't I didn't not I didn't realize there was a motion. So, >> okay, it's worth having it read. It's very generic. There's a regulatory requirement when the town the town is
required to file the license once it's fully signed and the uh with the state department of >> and and in that regulation it says to include a a brief statement of reason. So, the most >> you have it in front of you, Bernard.
No, I don't have a second page. >> That's all right. Um, it wasn't on the second page. Bill, would you read it aloud for us? >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. Oh. Oh. Oh, okay. Cuz I sent it to you uh to be Okay.
Um, motion >> motion for Brookline Comcast license renewal. um uh acting in its capacity as the statutory cable television licensing issuing authority license issuing
authority pursuant to mass general laws 166A and finding that the cable license renewal proposal of Comcast reasonably meets the cable related renewal needs and interests of the public and town and
finding that Comcast's financial and technical quality qualifications and Comcast's local programming channels, facilities, and services are reasonable to meet town cable license needs.
The Brookline Select Board hereby approves and shall execute the proposed Brookline Comcast renewal license. >> Okay. I don't see anything outrageous about that. comment. Any concerns?
>> I wish id got it earlier. >> Agreed. >> Sorry, Bernard. >> Use my blind to poem to see if there's anything problematic with it. >> It's very minimal. It just says, you know, we >> find their proposal meets the >> reasonably meets the renewal needs and
they have financial and technical capabilities and and are supportive of local programs. That's all which has been said one way or another previously. Yeah, >> I I I have one procedural question. It sounded like at the end of that that that was that was an approval of the
contract. So, I'm wondering whether it supersedes or supplants the vote that we just took. >> Well, I I would uh just vote it as um part a a
statement of reasons supporting the vote. an additional basis for why you voted to approve the contract. Right? You're adding you're adding facts into the record as to why you just approved the contract, >> right? Which is common like many bodies sometimes they'll reach, you know,
they'll issue their decision >> after their vote, you know, and put in the decision why they reach their decision. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Our legislative history. >> Right. Right. Right. It could be like that. Okay. So,
>> Bernard, Bernard, it's John. It's John. I I believe Chaz is now in on this call. And I just wonder if we could have his assurance that uh you know what we're being asked to vote on right now. Um is something that has been reviewed and uh
is satisfactory as far as staff are concerned. >> Okay. Also, Charlie, uh could you email to the select board that language? >> I mean, >> I apologize. I don't have it, but Bill, can you send it to me? Yeah. The one I have is a markup from another
>> uncomfortable. I will something with my eyes, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I'm a 50s guy. 1950s. >> If you send it to me right now, Bill, I will send it to the whole board. >> Right. Okay. I have to uh dig up the email that I sent it to you
>> and and well, >> I think it's in an email you sent to me. >> Well, I No, I sent a sample way one that had just been adopted to adapt. Um, let me just find dig that up. Hold on a second.
>> And while Bill's doing speak now, >> um, I wanted to let Joe jump in there and then I'm happy to speak. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, so while Bill's looking for that, >> but Bernard, I want I want to assure you this is just um meeting the regulatory
requirements of why a town would approve a contract like this. we're putting into the record the factual findings and kind of the rationale of why you're approving it. So it's not >> I appreciate that. I I just as a matter of good practice I think we need to look
at it with our own eyes. >> I I I agree but >> right >> but but it's it's not um it's not anything that the negotiating team is is coming up to you know a realization only at this 11th hour. This is what we've been dealing with with Comcast, you
know, for for months now. >> Okay. >> Right. And I think that just to alleviate John's concerns, right? This is this is something that we've been working through on this. It is it is a formality to ensure that the the record is kind of ironclad. Um, but I agree
with you, Bernard, that it's unfortunate that we don't have the written language in front of us, but this is something that, um, you know, given given the given the turnover, um, and given the the timing on this, um, we've had to kind of move as as, you know,
efficiently as possible. So, that's that's kind of where we are on this, but I'm not complaining. I just want to make sure that, you know, the record shows we looked at it. >> Absolutely. No, I and I agree. Okay. Are we uh Did you have it, Charlie? >> I'm about to send it out to everybody.
Give me just a moment. >> Bill, I have it. >> Okay. Okay, I got it. Other people have it. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Charlie, are you able to share screen, too? Right.
Right. And it has it has no impact on the terms and conditions of the license as Joe was saying. You know, it's just an administrative thing to have uh something uh showing that there were deliberate there was a
deliberation on a reason. >> Yep. >> Okay. Uh do we need to first of all shoot an MGL chapter 166? I don't mean to nitpick, but >> no,
that all that says is that select boards are the issuing authority. Um, >> no, I I mean just writing out the statute, it should be chapter 166 a >> boy. Oh, I'm
>> got to be useful. >> Okay. And then I think John mentioned that uh are we um superseding our previous vote in in >> I wouldn't supersede it. I would supplement it with an admin you know a
statement for the uh but I'll defer to Joe on that because that may be more of a generic ad law question than a cable question. >> Yeah. I I think supplementing you know your previous vote this this is your
you're amending it to include this additional information. >> Okay. Okay. Do we want to say that somewhere? >> The motion is to amend and include uh the language as written uh as as read by Bill and as on your screen in front of
you to your to your previous approval of the contract. >> Okay. Joe, just just make sure you give Kate the language that we're supposed to um be approving. Okay. Okay. Uh any um any objection to voting this additional
language? >> No. >> Okay. Seeing none. >> All in favor of u supplementing our vote with the additional language on our screen. Um uh please indicate by saying I. John
Bencoyak. >> Hi. >> Let's see. David Pearlman. >> I >> Michael Rubenstein. >> Hi. >> Chair votes eye. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Great. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. >> Okay. Um, any further business for the select board? Seeing none, I there therefore wish everyone a happy and safe new year um
and fun new year too. And uh with that I will end this meeting. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much.