Last night the MGAT (Milford Government Access Television) Committee answered questions posed by the Board of Aldermen, as we were a (thankfully early) part of the Board's four-hour budget session. Committee Chairman Mike Manente, who along with Phil Kearney answered the questions; while I sat there, helpfully holding a pen like there might be something important going on in my head that I'd absolutely NEED to jot down in a hurry! We're attempting to accomplish what the nearby Town of Orange, Connecticut does on less than 1/4 of their budget, even though THEY have only 25% of our population. If we ran similar numbers based on households per their funding, we'd need something in the vicinity of a quarter-million dollars to do what they do. ($65K x 4)
Suffice to say, Milford isn't going to give us a quarter-million bucks! Not this year, anyway. But we're getting to where we need to be on a tight shoestring, and I look forward to working with the city on making the process of government as transparent as possible.
5 comments:
Do you also get a split from the money paid by the cable company for local cable access every quarter? In East Haven that is the only money they get to run all 3 channels (government access, education, general local access). Last time I heard East Haven gets $65K to run all 3 channels.
Bob on TV. Too much transparency in government.
It's only fitting that they put you on the LEFT.
EHP, we're in a region that covers 6 towns in the Cablevision area. They had a $100K grant to split between those towns. We're set to receive about 1/4 of that, but it's all earmarked for equipment upgrades. Our operating expenses and personnel costs are part of the city's budget, which is currently at $14K for the year.
Which really doesn't make sense when smaller towns with a smaller subscriber base has a much larger budget than us. But we only had the official committee in place since January, so we're still sorting out all our financing options.
Mike, LOL!
...and I'm on the left only from my POV. :)
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