6
May
2023

March 1, 2023 Minutes

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Cable Television Advisory Council

Minutes for Wednesday, March 1st, 2023 6:00 pm Monthly Meeting– ZOOM

Attendance:   Johnes Ruta, Chair (New Haven)
George Alexander, Treasurer, (Hamden)
Tom Costa, Advisor  (New Haven Library System)
Melissa Canham-Clyne, Advisor  (Hamden)

  1. Call to order 6:07 pm
  2. Welcome and Minutes –
    a.  Johnes will write Minutes for March 1 meeting.
    b.  February Minutes  by Melissa. No changes have been requested.
    Johnes makes Motion to approve the February as submitted.  Tom Costa seconded. Unanimous approval.

    III.       Treasurer’s Report (George Alexander)
    a.      Present Funds Balance:  $6,655.42 (same as February, Interest accrued: $0.00).
    b.  Year-to-date expenditures:  $0.00.
    c.  Johnes moved to accept the Treasurer’s report. Mr. Costa seconded. Unanimous approval.

  3. CTV – Executive Director Joseph Schofield, not in attendance
  4. Joseph Schofield’s email is non-operational.
    b. The CTV offices on state Street are still closed to the public since onset of Covid-19. The video studios are not available to producers.
  5. Comcast –– Comcast Representative Amy Horan, not in attendance. No email messages received in February.

 

  1. Old Business
  2. CTAC Public Service Announcement: This has not been updated. Yvonne Manning-Jones, who was handling the PSA, CTAC Facebook page, and the CTAC website cableadvisory.org has resigned CTAC effective December, 2022.

    b.   PSA, CTAC Facebook page, and the CTAC website cableadvisory.org will now be attended by George Alexander.  George reports that only the website is attended by George Alexander and only the website is up-to-date.

    c.   Community Awards, 2023 planning:  Melissa states that CTAC cold give up to $2000 to community facilities, such as convalescent homes, which have a cable television subscription to Comcast. Hannah Gray does not have Comacast. Partnerships Adult Day Center (Hamden) does have a Comcast Cable and Internet subscription and would greatly appreciate a grant. CTAC spending on this matter has been low due to lack of Comcast subscriptions in the field.

 

VII.      New Business
a. Melissa Canham-Clyne and Tom Costa remark on the present attrition of CTAC membership, with the recent resignation of  Anthony Cardo, Laurel Coleman and Yvonne Manning-Jones, that we need to develop new tactics for recruitment to our Council. West Haven presently has no representation with us.
We need further outreach for membership for to Boards of Education for school systems, one for each city in our district.

b. We discuss a new strategy: to reach out specifically to young people for participation, especially to students in Business Studies programs.

c.  We discuss the ongoing purpose of CTAC, in light of CT legislative proposals to reduce cable companies’ budget allocations for Community television and Cable Advisory budgets, according to Cable advisory By-Laws. There is presently a legislative Bill SB-16 regarding PURA’s authority.

VIII.    Subscriber Issues

  1. Subscriber Correspondence: Difficulties with GoDaddy website make it hard to access complaints. The  site suffers a large amount of spam.
  2. Johnes again brings up the issue of phishing emails with  @Comcast,net extension addresses trying to obtain Comcast subscribers personal account info by trickery. Johnes has repeatedly forwarded these false emails to Comcast Security and Abuse Department requesting investigation for fraudulent activities, but has not received any acknowledgment from that department.
  3. Next meeting scheduled for April 5, 2023 6:00pm on ZOOM, or possibly for an outdoor dining meeting.

Meeting Adjourns at 7:04. Ms. Canham-Clyne moved. Mr. Alexander seconded. Anonymous  approval.

Minutes for March 1st, 2023 meeting respectfully submitted by Johnes Ruta,  03/28/2023.