MAYOR DANIEL M. KNAPIK
WESTFIELD – The Cable Television Advisory Commission is assessing a broader scope of responsibilities which could include providing guidance to the city on technology issues, as well as its current role negotiating with the city’s cable television provider.
The city’s Cable Television Commission, which advises Mayor Daniel M. Knapik about contract issues, recently toured the facilities at Westfield State University and the Technology Center next to Barnes Regional Airport to determine what equipment and technological capacities the city needs to acquire to improve the quality of local telecommunication and cable services to the city’s 13,000 cable subscribers.
The city’s 10-year contract with Comcast, the city’s cable provider, expired last March. The current negotiations are at “a standstill” over the term of the new contract. Comcast is seeking a 10-year pact, while Mayor Daniel M. Knapik has said that because of the rapid evolution of telecommunication technology that it is in the city’s best interest to enter a five-year contract.
“This could be the last cable contract in the way it has been done since cable television came into the city,” Knapik said this morning, “in the future we will have to look at it differently. Technology will never be static and will continue to evolve.”
Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., said Wednesday that the cable board “is moving ahead with a proposal to expand the scope of the commission’s responsibility to allow it to have an advisory role in IT (information technology).”
“Technology is becoming so mixed and there is no formal group advising the city on those issues,” Miller said. “The Cable Commission would become the IT Commission; it would remain an advisory body. Salem has done that already.”
Knapik said that he plans to introduce legislation next fall to the City Council to revamp the mission of the advisory board to include information technology.
“The city is looking for ways to use technology to stimulate economic advancement,” Knapik said. “We have a robust IT infrastructure that we need to provide, not just for city use, but for the public, as well. Maximize its use for the taxpayers.”
Knapik said the role of the revamped commission, which might meet quarterly “is to develop policy, then leave it to the professionals to execute those policies.”
