Fix needed for Dracut’s poor local access cable connection

The ongoing saga between Dracut town officials and its local access cable TV provider should serve as a cautionary tale for municipalities entering into an operating agreement with any such entity.

Know what you’re signing — and the control you’re relinquishing — before agreeing to that contract.

Failure to employ due diligence could lead to the creation of an impenetrable fiefdom immune from municipal oversight.

Though relations between the town and Dracut Access Television have been fraying for some time, selectmen recently asked Town Manager Ann Vandal to research how other communities work with their local access cable providers.

That request ostensibly resulted from the absence of DATV representatives at a selectmen’s meeting that included an agenda item in which it sought up to

$60,000 of public funds to purchase and install equipment at Harmony Hall.

The other DATV-related business involved Selectman Joseph DiRocco’s ongoing request for detailed financial reports from the station.

DiRocco has been frustrated with the lack of detailed financial information DATV had made available to the board. He has indicated funding from cable provider Comcast will bring the reserves close to $1 million in the next few months. For its part, DATV contends it has submitted all the information it’s required to present.

DATV receives its funding through subscriber franchise fees that residents pay to Comcast. Under the most recent contract with the town, that payment represents 4% of gross video revenue. Another 0.25% of the fees go to the town’s technology fund.

In a similar line of questioning, Selectmen Chairman Jesse Forcier wanted to know why DATV wants town money when it has its own cash reserves totaling more than $600,000.

Contacted by the newspaper after the meeting, DATV lawyer Sheryl Bourbeau said that since the town would own any equipment installed at Harmony Hall, municipal funding was required.

Bourbeau also said that DATV followed its usual procedure by sending a letter to selectmen — rather than attending in person — recommending the project, a reflection of their informal relationship.

DATV is an independent, nonprofit organization, not a town department or part of Comcast.

As such DATV isn’t subject to the state’s open meeting, conflict-of-interest or procurement laws.

That status allowed Phil Thibault, a member of the DATV board of directors and a professional architect, to land a $10,000 contract to help design DATV’s new studio.

Bourbeau indicated

DATV’s bylaws prohibit compensating a director for his or her work on the board, but make an exception if the director can provide something of value to the organization, as Thibault did in this case.

Town government’s limited understanding of its relationship with its local access cable TV provider — along with the mean-spirited content it allows and ongoing internal power struggle — has led Dracut to this irritating impasse.

However, it need not have been this way.

For example, Lowell’s local access cable TV provider — Lowell Telecommunications Corporation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation — offers a link on its website to its most recent IRS filing (Form 990), so cable subscribers and the general public can learn more about how it spends its budget.

DATV doesn’t disclose this information — at least not on its website. Is that something the town manager and selectmen can demand now? Or should that have been part of the town’s negotiations with DATV at the outset of their relationship?

It would seem that since it’s funded from a contract negotiated between the town and Comcast, Dracut officials should be able to demand more transparency from DATV.

However, absent a rewrite of state law, Dracut and

DATV are stuck with each other.