Cable committee discusses public access channel

    The Washington Cable Committee had further discussion of expanding the programming on the city?s public access channel at its meeting Thursday afternoon. The committee decided that its members would address the city council on March 3 to inform the council of the committee?s progress in the last month.

    At the Feb. 2 cable committee meeting, the committee met with a representative from Mediacom who gave them a cost estimate of the equipment the city would need to televise council meetings and put them on the air. Lee Grassley, the Mediacom representative, told the council that $95,000 was a good estimate for all the equipment it would need. That estimate included three Professional HDV Camcorders, each of which would cost approximately $12,800, totaling one-third of the budget.

    On Thursday, Washington Community Y Maintenance Director and committee member Roger Adams said that the city wouldn?t need three cameras right off the bat.

    ?With at least one camera, we could tape the city council meetings,? said Adams. ?To go out and do a shoot ? if you ask any television station ? three cameras is the minimum to do a decent production. But our finances aren?t there, so we?re just going to use one camera.?

    Adams remarked that the cable committee is at the point where it just wants to get off the ground.

    ?A lot of the equipment on Lee Grassley?s list we don?t need now,? he said. ?Some of those are things we will need as we grow, but we don?t need to have them now. We?ve got to get that first leg in piece. The $95,000 is something to look at, but that?s not where we are. As we grow, we may come to have that kind of investment in it.?

For the full article, see our Feb. 19 print edition.