NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city's hoping to remove the nest of wires crossing Council Chambers and replace television equipment that's old enough to vote.

 

Northern Berkshire Community Television Director Matthew Tucker and the city's Information Technology Director Mark Pierson updated the council on Tuesday on efforts to bring the building's audio and visual capabilities up to par.

 

Tucker called it "the most ironic presentation" as sound cut out again on the cable access channel's broadcast of the meeting.

 

"The audio is not behaving," he said, offering his apologies. "The difficulties this evening is almost definitely related to the fact that with in the past week, we have installed a brand-new, fresh out of the box video server, sort of the brain of the television station. It handles all of the shows that get played."

 

Prior problems with sound quality were primarily related to aged equipment, which ranges in age from 2005 to 2013, said Tucker. "In technology years, that is extremely old and we have managed to get as much as we can out of that equipment."

 

In response to questions, he estimated it would be $60,000 to $70,000 to update the Council Chamber's equipment that would address the poor video quality as well. He said the station has been in discussions with Spectrum, which provides capital funding for public access, and is pursuing several grants to fund replacements.

 

Pierson said the preliminary cost to address audio issues within the chamber and streaming options "was quite high" but they were working to get that number down.

 

The IT Department has ordered a new 4K camera, sound deadening installations, speakers and microphones. The projector will also be upgraded to 4K with a new 16x10-foot screen. 

 

"The camera moves so it'll pick up on the most active speaker," he said. "We're going to put speakers and microphones in the ceiling, and get rid of all the wires that the Owls have thrown across the floor."

 

The Owl Pro system was installed in 2021 for recording and streaming in real time; this was in response to the move to hybrid and remote meetings because of the pandemic. The system has allowed the council to stream its meetings to YouTube and Facebook, albeit with low quality video. Pierson noted the audio has been OK but not good enough for proper transcription.

 

The two Owls are set up between the councilors' tables and wiring for the recorders and the microphones at each table have been messy trip hazards. 

 

Tucker joined the IT Department on Tuesday's call to the vendor, as the upgrades to the system should benefit the television station as well. 

 

"There are a bunch of things that we're looking to purchase, and so it'll address all these issues for the cable TV people," said Pierson. "We're going to try and get crystal clarity audio for everybody, but that's going to mean we have to have the device to control the sound."

 

They had considered a second screen and projector but instead are looking to get rid of the desk microphones and get all the wires and boxes off the ground. 

 

The current microphones feed into the television station; the new microphones would hang a short way down from the ceiling with one feeding to the TV and the other to the council's live feed. They would also link to the speakers to provide for better audio control within the room. Pierson said this system would alleviate problems with "soft speakers" and concerns over how close to speak to the table microphones. 

 

Mayor Jennifer Macksey said the system would also help avoid the "dreaded phone on the table" for those who have to participate remotely. This is becoming more critical as the Legislature debates "adequate, alternative" access for the public. 

 

"Mark and John have been charged with the fact that we should be able to Zoom in to meetings without disrupting the cable or the YouTube or anything else, and sometimes you see us scrambling," she said. "That is a priority for me. So God forbid any of us are sick, we can still participate. And or if we're traveling, we still can participate. So that is a primary focus for this room as well, to really just have a docking station and be able to run without, you know, tripping over all these wires."

 

Other infrastructure and equipment needs to be installed to get to that point, and there is some difficulty in getting other rooms and public buildings to that standard. There is "plug and play" remote access in the second-floor conference room, the library's third-floor community room and the education center at Brayton Elementary School. 

 

The administration has applied for a state Community Compact IT grant. The program awards up to $200,000 for one-time capital costs for technology hardware and software. 

 

Pierson said about $140,000 of that would to a new solid state server with onsite backup. 

 

"You can't delete it, it is immutable," he said. "If we were to get hacked or ransomwared and the entire environment went down, we should be able to recover within 10 minutes."

 

In response to a question from Councilor Keith Bona, Tucker said the station was not in a metered market so he couldn't tell how many people were watching any of its programs, but the new streaming technology should allow that to be measured. 

 

"The best metrics that we have are mostly when something goes wrong, people letting us know that they can't they can't watch it, which, as frustrating as it is, it means a lot because it means that people are watching and people care that this is a service that continues to matter to them," he said. 

 

Councilor Bryan Sapienza asked if the station could switch to low-power television broadcast. Tucker said it was something to consider but pointed out it would be a different type of content that would fall under the Federal Communications Commission. 

 

"One of the advantages of cable access media is that there is a protected 1st Amendment right for anyone who wants to access the cable system to speak freely," he said. "That is not necessarily compatible with a FCC-regulated broadcast license, because FCC broadcast licenses usually require some degree of reciprocity account."

 

Pierson estimated about six weeks to get the new audio and streaming equipment installed. 

 

In other business, the council gave final authorization to borrow $1.75 million for a new firetruck; postponed a discussion on sustainability to the second meeting of February; and postponed a presentation on social services and interventions at Drury High to the first meeting in February because the presenter was ill.  

 

• It approve unanimously the sale of 159 Eagle St. at a price of $15,000 to Alan Aubin and Margaret Neville, who own the commercial block next door, once the home of Neville's Donuts. The mayor said there were five bids and that the decision to sell to Aubin and Neville was that they were abuttors, were seeking to solve a parking issue in that area and that they were paying in cash. 

 

The house is in poor condition, with holes in the floor and structural deterioration. People had been living in the property as late as last August in unsafe conditions. The property had been in tax title since 1997 and the owners had been on a payment plan back in the early 2000s.

 

"The total that we put into tax possession was close to $57,000 so you can basically say taxes haven't been paid since 1997," said the mayor. "Look, we're not making any money on this. So that's the bad. The good is that this will get put back on the books in a positive sense, the purchaser has a positive tax-paying ability with us."

 

Treasurer/Collector Jessica Lincourt said the city had 43 properties currently in Land Court. Twelve are "close to the finish line" and six have houses, of which Lincourt though four might be salvageable. 

 

• The mayor informed the council she had reappointed Lilly Marceau to the Cemetery Commission with a term ending Feb. 27, 2029; Ashley Shade and Jennifer "JJ" Choquette to the IDEA Commission, terms ending Feb. 8, 2029; Matthew David and Eric Kerns to the Mass MoCA Commission, terms ending Feb. 1, 2029; and Kyle Hanlon and Brian Miksic to the Planning Board, terms ending Feb. 1, 2031.