One of the best ways to provide transparency in town government is by letting everyone attend the meetings, either in person or via the magic of television. FairTV, the town's dedicated committee to airing meetings of town boards on television, has been struggling to fulfill that promise, and a new chapter is about to begin.

Fairfield is part of the state's Area 2 cable television region and about $6.50 of our Cablevision yearly bill goes toward funding public access television – the channels dedicated to public, education, and government services. In a unique deal, Cablevision actually subcontracts the management of those channels for Area 2 to a third party, Sound View Community Media, Inc. Its owner, Tom Castelot, fills those channels with pretty much whatever he feels like, which, over the years, has angered the Area 2 communities. Rather than take his roughly $600,000 a year and provide local coverage, Sound View runs a lot of public domain programming.

Bit by bit, though, the towns have been seizing control of their Education and Government channels. When FairTV was formed in 2008, the town notified Sound View they wanted local control, which was reluctantly granted, but it then took an act by the State Legislature to force Castelot to share some of our user fees with the towns. Now, $100,000 is directly given to the Area 2 Cable Advisory Council (a body I once served on) to administer to its constituent towns. FairTV was given a grant of $19,000 for the Education channel and $17,000 for the Government channel, paid out in quarterly installments, the last of which was recently received.

Acting FairTV Chairman Jim Kennelly told me recently that the money went, by mandate, to equipment. By late September, they will have received a TriCaster Professional Studio with six video cameras, four microphones and a central device to allow an operator to cut between cameras, add live titles and capture the entire event digitally. With minimal post-production required, it means we can more quickly have town meetings or events broadcast on our channels.

Better, for those who subscribe to FIOS, U-verse, or satellite or don't have any enhanced television at all, these events will soon be available for viewing through a link on the town website, taking you to an archive.

Kennelly explained that when FairTV was founded, events were initially recorded and after editing, were burned onto DVDs which were then played on a server located in a closet beneath Town Hall; a time-consuming and laborious process. When FairTV Chairman Howard Jacobson and Vice Chairman Neal Fink both left the committee, Kennelly got tapped to be acting chair. What he managed to do was work with town Information Technology Director Donald Leslie to upgrade the process, moving from discs to Mpeg2 files, and adding a remote access element, which let Kennelly upload programming directly from home.

While Kennelly is delighted to have the equipment coming and being able to resume meeting coverage, he has one major concern - a lack of labor.

The state's Department of Public Utility Control has concluded that cable user fees should not go for labor and the Cable Advisory Council has decided not to rock the boat and directs their grant monies to towns for mostly equipment. Only $500 per channel was provided for labor. As a result, Kennelly has only a few thousand dollars remaining from a previous Sound View grant to pay videographers through the middle of December.

If you look at our town Education and Government channels, you will see a plea for volunteers between programs. Kennelly says not once has someone reached out. He met last spring with the PTA Council and asked each school to form a committee to help locate and train people to help cover school events and not a single school has stepped forward.

"I'm limited by a lack of labor," Kennelly said. "The local university students are practically professionals and won't do this work on a volunteer basis. Ron Davis said I should invite seniors to come volunteer, and, while I am happy to train them, let's face it - some of the town meetings run very late and this is a burden on them."

All he needs, Kennelly said, is $24,000 so both channels can each broadcast 20 hours of programming a month for a year. That will be the focus of FairTV's 2011 grant request, which they will begin discussing at their Sept. 15 meeting (time and place to be announced.) He's hoping that now that they have the equipment, the CAC, of which he and Leslie are two of Fairfield's representatives, will recognize the need to help provide funds for manpower. "I'd have gladly sacrificed two of the cameras for $7000 in labor money," he said.

Provided there's someone to run the equipment, the intent is to experiment with broadcasting Board of Selectmen meetings live in early 2011, and if successful, roll out the program to other major town boards.

Long-term, Kennelly suspects that the growth of capturing video on smartphones may supplement or even replace the need to rely on the CAC, Sound View, or Cablevision. As a result, he is content with letting the digital programming be fed through the analog I-net network Cablevision installed two decades back. The new equipment should sharpen the picture and enhance the sound for viewers at home.

A percentage of Fairfield is being asked to help fund a town-wide benefit, which on the face of it, is silly. The DPUC should be extracting similar fees from the cable competitors and even the satellite companies. Our town should direct the CAC to tell the DPUC that since their view is an opinion and not law, they should reverse themselves and let our money be used to pay people to use the equipment our money went to purchase.

Kennelly should not be the lone voice when the advantages are clear.

We all benefit when we can see our elected officials and our children at work and play. If you agree, please let your state reps know so they can further represent us on this matter.

Robert Greenberger, a former RTM member, is vice chairman of the Democratic Town Committee.