Can you see me now? Board promises improvements to Channel 25

 

By Gail Peckler-Dziki~Correspondent

Tune in to Channel 25 to watch village board meetings or catch the information loop and it might be hard to see and hear. But that’s about to change by the end of the year since village officials have seen a way to solve the problem without dipping into the general fund.

“I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner,” village president Marlene Goodson said. “We receive franchise fees from Time- Warner, so we can pay for upgrades to your video and audio system without using one dime of taxpayers money.”

Goodson said she has received many complaints about what residents see and hear, or don’t see and hear.

“Besides phone calls, people tell me when I’m in the grocery store or anywhere else in public. This service is especially important to our older residents who want to know what government is doing and for whom getting to meetings might be difficult.”

Village administrator Tim Popanda said that the village receives approximately $18,000 a year in franchise fees. That number can vary from year to year and is based on the number of village residents who subscribe to cable.

“We receive about 1.5 percent of the profit that Time Warner receives from village customers,” Popanda explained. “This is a negotiated item.”

The village has sent out three invitations to bid and two have been returned. “We are waiting for the third on,” Popanda said. “We did not set a deadline.”

The possible costs have come back significantly lower that first expected. Village officials plan to replace the computer the village uses to send signal to Time Warner. The computer used for this is from 1998 and so out of date that there are no available upgrades so must be replaced.

“We need commercial cameras, at least two so we can better cover the meetings and we need to rewire the village hall to create a better, more direct connection from the cameras to the new computer,” Popanda explained.

The sound system was recently upgraded and the village uses state-of-the-art wireless microphones and no change is needed.

Part of the problem is that while everyone else has gone to high definition (HD), village equipment is still analog.

“We would like to have the problem solved by the end of this year,” Popanda said.


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