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Editor’s Note: Residents can participate in hearings in person at Town Hall or remotely through GoTo meetings. SCA’s technical issues have no impact on resident participation but they do affect residents’ ability to watch meetings.
The Board of Selectmen on August 12 lamented the fact that Spencer Cable TV is currently unable to broadcast meetings because of technical difficulties.
Selectmen are concerned that Spencer residents interested in watching public hearings regarding a possible Proposition 2 ½ override next spring will be unable to do so.
Without meetings airing on cable TV or Facebook, members are also concerned residents will not have the ability to hear the board’s discussion on the topic.
“We don’t know when they are up and running again,” said Selectman Ralph Hicks. He questioned whether it would make sense to hold off override talks until SCTV can broadcast meetings.
“I want everyone to have the opportunity to take part, get their questions answer and discuss it,” Hicks added.
He noted that there are approximately 8,000 voters in town and even if the Town Hall meeting room was filled, it would accommodate 50-60 people. Hicks questioned whether the board should “keep the powder dry,” until the meetings can be airing again.
Vice chair Jared Grigg agreed that “transparency throughout the process,” is important but felt there must be a way to work around the problems, get temporary equipment or take other measures to get the broadcasts available.
After hearing it could be a wiring issue, rather than faulty equipment, he said that a time frame is needed for when the problem can be fixed. He added “it is going to be a hot minute,” if the issues extend beyond equipment difficulties.
Selectman Tony Pepe said they needed a “creative, well thought out plan,” as to how to handle the situation because, “time is going to run short.”
Rather than speculate on what the difficulties at Spencer Cable Access involve, the board instructed Town Manager Jeff Bridges to see if surrounding communities could help in some way.
Members also thought it would be better to talk to General Manager Aaron Keyes at a special meeting prior to the next scheduled one on September 16.
SCA has a remote production room setup at Town Hall and a full production studio at the SCA building. Both systems rely heavily on intricate network configurations that require several layers of equipment.
Keyes told the Spencer Journal on August 20 that the station started noticing issues at Town Hall in March when sound equipment failed. He explained the problem was quickly resolved.
However, the studio experienced some interruptions in the network that caused intermittent loss of connection between Town Hall and the Spencer Cable Access studio.
The problem was compounded by a failure of a power conditioner which brought several pieces of critical equipment offline, according to Keyes.
“As this was happening, we lost a router that was responsible for directing network traffic to and from the Town Hall studio,” he added.
Keyes said he is working with two network contractors to resolve the issues but they have encountered other problems along the way.
“We have restored the ability to broadcast on channel 194 and stream to our website (SCATV.org),” Keyes said, “but we still do not have Internet at Town Hall.”
Keyes noted that the situation has revealed that the station must reimagine the network setup to ensure “consistent and reliable uptime between the Town Hall, Wire Village School, the SCA and eventually the high school.”
He said that SCA has not had technical issues for at least a decade and has made important content available on cable, Facebook, SCATV.org and through the Spencer Journal.
Although there have been occasional lapses with the Internet out because of a problem with the service provider or car accidents that knocked down poles, etc., Keyes said they have never had a “convergence of multiple pieces of equipment failing,” in this manner.
“Because of the nature of these issues, it’s taken a longer time to identify the problems and resolve them,” Keyes said. “I thank the town administrator, the SCA board and the people of Spencer for their patience and understanding while we work through these issues.”
See now that was easy rather than keeping everyone in the dark over this. Transparency (even if at the time you had no idea how to fix this) ends speculation.