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Date: 5/23/2023
SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Focus Springfield during its May 15 meeting.
Attorney Thomas Moore with the city’s Law Department explained that the MOU is a written mechanism to transfer the franchise fees — on a quarterly basis — Comcast paid the city to Focus Springfield to perform public, education and governmental cable access services.
“The MOU is essentially intended to run concurrently with the cable contract that the city has with Comcast and as such it runs for a period of up to 10 years. At the end of that period, we’ll certainly know a lot more of where our next agreement with Comcast will go and certainly, we’ll have to redo a MOU with Focus [Springfield], should that organization still be on board,” Moore said.
He shared that Focus Springfield did a “fantastic” job during the coronavirus pandemic in bringing Springfield up to speed and modernizing its capability to work remotely.
Focus Springfield interim Executive Director Stephen Cary said the goal during COVID-19 was to make City Hall and Springfield be at the “pinnacle” of being recognized for offering hybrid and remote meetings in a fashion where people can see and hear.
One of the biggest difficulties in a room such as the City Hall chambers is the acoustics, shared Cary. “If we were to be able to do our remote meetings with sign language there [would] be no problem — there’d be little expense — but it’s sound which is very important,” he said. However, it is costly. Cary noted that they are about 75% to 80% finished working through City Hall and are looking to afford and purchase the rest of the equipment soon.
Councilor at-Large Kateri Walsh asked if Focus Springfield would be doing any new programs.
In reference to the public, educational and government access channels, Cary said they have focused mostly on government since March 2020. “It’s like we have three children, and we really haven’t been putting a lot of emphasis onto the public and education,” he said. “We sure wish we could be doing more in the other two disciplines and we sure hope to in the near future.”
Ward 8 City Councilor Zaida Govan applauded Focus Springfield for their “amazing” work throughout the coronavirus pandemic and the continued hybrid offerings.
Govan asked about the possibility of translating in Spanish through closed captions or other options.
Cary shared that they were heading to Boston the day after the City Council meeting to check out new servers. As these costs thousands of dollars, he said they are actively researching and hope to obtain it in at least one language.
Ward 6 City Councilor Victor Davila said translation services in all languages present in the city should be offered. “I know it’s a task, it’s [going to] be expensive, but I truly believe that it can be done. If anybody can do it it’s you guys,” Davila said.
Davila thanked Focus Springfield and shared, “If it wasn’t for you during COVID, I think [the] government would have literally come to a complete standstill.”
He went on to say that they are an “integral part” of the city.
Council President Jesse Lederman said, “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.”