May 4, 2016 Minutes
MINUTES of CTAC of Hamden, New Haven and West Haven
Meeting Date: May 4, 2016
Call to order: A regular monthly meeting of CTAC was held at CTV Offices at 843 State Street, New Haven, Connecticut, on Wednesday, May 4, 2016. President Tad Weinstein presiding. Don Levy Secretary. Meeting called to order at 6:08.
Members in attendance:
Tad Weinstein, Chair (WH), George Alexander, Treasurer (H), Don Levy, Secretary (H),
Ashley Sklar
Joe Schofield, CTV, Steve Gimmell, Frontier
A quorum was absent therefor no official business was transacted.
Joe Schofield said that a Frontier engineer have made a site visit to CTV in preparation for laying fiber optic cable to provide Frontier subscribers with CTV programs for the first time. Steve Gimmell from Frontier said CTV programs ought to be available to Frontier customers prior to the June CTAC meeting. On behalf of CTAC, Don Levy expressed the Council’s gratitude that CTV programs will soon be available on the Frontier cable system. Joe said that CTV programs are now being produced in High Definition. He said, however, that viewers are only able to access these programs in Standard Definition. Joe asked Steve to look into the possibility that the Frontier system would be capable of cablecasting CTV programs in HD. Joe also said that PEGPETIA equipment grants for the state of Connecticut would no longer be available due to the state’s budget shortfall. Joe indicated that he was spearheading a move in concert with other community cable operators to change the ongoing funding mechanism for the cable operators to provide equitable funding and to provide additional funding for equipment as well as to establish consistent and predictable financial support in light of the shrinking customer base of cable subscribers in general.
Steve Gimmell spoke about Frontier’s new download of the Vantage software. No advance notice of this download had been given to Frontier customers. Because the Vantage software changed many of the at-home cable functions this caused a great deal of confusion and concern among the customer base. Don pointed out that if CTAC had been alerted to this download and had the CTAC website been up and running the CTAC website could have alerted Frontier customers of the change. Don said this missed opportunity to provide service was the most glaring failure of CTAC during the time he has served on the Council. Steve said that once customers learned how to navigate using the Vantage download they would experience enhanced programming opportunities including being able to watch as many as four programs at the same time.
Ashley Sklar said that the mayor of New Haven had told the library director that the Mayor would be informing the Council of her new appointment to fill the CTAC seat vacated by Martha
Brogan.
Meeting ended at 6:58 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by Don Levy, CTAC Secretary.