March 2, 2016 Minutes

MINUTES of CTAC of Hamden, New Haven and West Haven
Meeting Date: March 2, 2016

Call to order: A regular monthly meeting of CTAC was held at CTV Offices at 843 State Street, New Haven, Connecticut, on Wednesday, March 2, 2016. President Tad Weinstein presiding. Don Levy Secretary. Meeting called to order at 6:00.

Members in attendance:

Tad Weinstein, Chair (WH),
George Alexander, Treasurer (H),
Don Levy, Secretary (H),
Johnes Ruta (NH).

Ashley Sklar

Joe Schofield, CTV, Sharon Codeanne, Comcast, Steve Gimmell, Frontier

The minutes for the February meeting were approved as submitted.

Sharon Codeanne of Comcast said the 15th Annual Comcast Cares Day will be held on Saturday, April 30 at New Haven’s Lincoln-Bassett School. Other Comcast outreach activities included sponsoring the Urban League Youth Forum in New Haven as well as the United Way New Haven “Read Across America” event on March 2. “Al Jezeera America” will be shut down on April 12. Steve Gimmell from Frontier said no progress has been made in cablecasting CTV programming over the Frontier system. Joe Schofield said he would reach out to the local Frontier office to express hjs and the Council’s disappointment in this regard and to seek a strong commitment to get CTV programs on the Frontier system as quickly as possible. Steve highlighted the fact that Frontier was sponsoring the New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade as well as the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk on May 7. Joe Schofield indicated that parking in the CTV lot has become difficult and that CTV will be installing a mechanized gate in order to maintain open spots for CTV personnel and visitor. Joe also indicated that the state budget shortfall was once again pirating funds paid by cable subscribers which had been earmarked for equipment grants via the PEGPETIA mechanism. Joe was also working with his colleagues statewide to establish (via new state legislation) a better formula to provide more consistent funding for the efforts of community cable program producers.

Johnes Ruta said he was about 90 percent finished getting the CTAC website migrated to the WordPress system. He was unable to indicate his charge to add functionality to the CTAC website so that community members could use the site to apply for the CTAC Video Excellence Grants to be awarded during 2016.

The March regular meeting of CTAC was adjourned at 7:09 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by D. Levy, CTAC secretary