A new agreement is in place that will keep municipal government in Springfield, Massachusetts in the public eye.
The Springfield City Council unanimously approved a new 10-year agreement with Focus Springfield Corporation to continue to provide public access, educational, and local government television programming over cable and streaming.
City Council President Jesse Lederman saluted the work done by Focus during the COVID-19 pandemic to put the technology in place to allow public meetings to be held at first remotely and then later in a hybrid-format.
“To the whole Focus Springfield team, I think I speak for all of us when I say we literally could not do it without you,” Lederman said.
Over the last couple of years, the staff of Focus has installed new large flat-screen monitors, cameras, microphones, and remote meeting equipment in the City Council Chambers, the Council committee room, and other locations in City Hall where public meetings and events take place.
Stephen Cary, Executive Director of Focus, told Councilors Monday night the goal was to have Springfield lead the way in making municipal government highly accessible to the public during – and now after -- COVID.
“It is not cheap to do that,” Cary said. “We are probably 75-80 percent finished working through City Hall. We are looking to be able to afford and purchase the rest of the equipment which will happen in pretty short order.”
Earlier, Cary estimated the cost of the technological upgrades at City Hall to be as much as $500,000.
Now with pandemic emergencies over, he said Focus is looking to do more programming on the channels it devotes to community and educational topics.
“We sure wish we could be doing more in the other two disciplines and we sure hope to in the near future,” Cary said.
Responding to questions from Councilors Zaida Govan and Victor Davila asking if Focus will provide a Spanish language translation of its programs, Cary said that is in the works.
“That is something we are actively researching, certainly to get it in one language,” he said.
The Council also voted to transfer $700,000 from the city’s free cash account to Focus.
The money comes from a per-subscriber fee collected by Comcast – the city’s cable franchisee – to pay for public access, education, and government television.
