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| Incident Report on Town Council (Dec 3) & ZBA (Dec 4) meetings |
The following “incident report” was prepared by Steve Sherlock in coordination with Town Administrator Jamie Hellen and Franklin TV Executive Director Peter Fasciano.
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** The Dec 3, 2025 Town Council meeting issue:
Franklin TV equipment in Council Chambers took a power surge during the storm Tuesday night causing the loss of some critical equipment. Studio personnel worked Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Friday’s work seems to have brought the systems back to operational status. Additional testing will be done before the meetings next week
Action:
The Town Council Dec 3, 2025 meeting needs to be reconstructed from the Zoom recording and Council Chamber recording. This will take time but will be shared once ready.
The studio equipment is Franklin TV responsibility; the studio location in Council Chambers is powered by the Town. Power management from the Town is optimal. A few years ago backup power was revised to distribute to 'mission critical' service points throughout the building in an emergency. It's referenced as red-socketing. You see red wall sockets in hospitals and anywhere that power must be maintained under all conditions. It answers the question: If power goes away, what points must we maintain? It divides the building into "must do, like to do". The Franklin TV control room is included. The implementation was smartly accomplished. The issue that arose in this case was a failure in the Franklin TV UPS - (uninterruptible power supply) the one thing that should have protected the system.
** Thursday’s Dec 4, 2025 Zoning Board of Appeals meeting issues:
The Thursday Zoning Board of Appeals meeting had less of a technical glitch and more of a resource issue to manage the meeting. The technical glitch occurred prior to the meeting start and the check to resolve was not completed before the meeting started. The meeting was recorded, and immediately upon conclusion, made available to YouTube.
All meetings scheduled for broadcast start on Zoom.
The Town manages the meeting or webinar format, setting time, permissions, and managing the attendees (admitting, muting/unmuting, etc.).
One of the key steps is for the Town to permission the Franklin TV account to record the meeting. This recording is then fed through the Franklin TV network to feed the Comcast and Verizon cable subscribers as well as to YouTube.
The technical glitch on Thursday was an update to the YouTube feed controller. Comcast and Verizon broadcast feeds were handled properly. The YouTube feed was fixed immediately after the meeting ended and the meeting was public at that time.
The management glitch was in Town administration of the meeting. A new person was at the controls and unaware of the lack of the feed to YouTube. Once made aware, then the general public were added to the session (beginning approx. 7:00 PM).
Action:
Franklin TV to confirm feed configurations are proper and operational before next week's meetings.
There needs to be a backchannel for those conducting the meeting to communicate other than through the open meeting, especially when the open meeting itself is an issue. The backchannel process needs to be defined, process and communications confirmed to better manage future meeting issues. (Note: this backchannel is much more important for Remotely Only meetings, generally, folks are together in the Council Chambers or 3rd floor training room and can address the issues and determine a communication plan if needed)
