NewburyportNews.com, Newburyport, MA

ROWLEY - The Board of Selectmen will decide on Nov. 12 whether cable television giant Comcast is in violation of its 9-year-old contract with the town.

The decision will be in the wake of a two-hour hearing on alleged violations Thursday night. The session was attended by members of the town's Cable Television Advisory Committee, the towns special cable attorney and about 20 Rowley residents.

At issue is whether Comcast is providing the public, educational and governmental - PEG for short - services that are called for in the contract, which expires next September.

Cable Advisory Committee members claim it is not, and that much of the problem stems from a decision by the company earlier this year to close a studio in Newburyport that had been used by five communities to produce local access programming.

"There is no question that Comcast in every respect, is in noncompliance," the town's special counsel for cable television, William Solomon of Stoneham, said late in the meeting. Afterward, he said that if selectmen agree, the town could go to court and get a judge's order directing the company to comply with its agreement.

Representing Comcast, Senior Government and Community Relations Manager Jason Whittet tried to focus the meeting strictly on the language of the contract itself. He often asked questioners where in the document they found wording that required a specific service be provided and asserted on numerous occasions that Comcast was in compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Advisory Committee Chairman Warren Appell and Solomon said the closing of the Newburyport studio had been done unilaterally by the company. They argued that alternatives offered by the company were unacceptable.

Specifically, they said, Comcast offered Rowley the use of its studio in Amesbury, which was acquired as part of Comcast's takeover of another company that had been servicing Amesbury. Solomon and Whittet sparred over whether the Amesbury facility was "geographically convenient," as called for in the contract.

Appell said the Amesbury studio did not have the capability of cablecasting to Rowley.

Appell also said Comcast had stopped showing the meetings of the Triton Regional School Committee, of which Rowley is a member, unilaterally and without notice.

Triton had videotaped its own meetings and then a school district staff member brought the tape to the Newburyport studio for telecasting to Rowley over one of the system's public access channels. After the Newburyport studio was closed, the Triton staffer was instructed to bring the tape to the Amesbury facility, only to be told that it couldn't be broadcast back to Rowley.

Triton Committee member Darlene Doucot and school district Business Manager Brian Forget both said they had not been notified that meetings were no longer being broadcast.

Whittet said he had been unaware that Triton meetings were no longer aired and that, when it was brought to his attention, he had ordered a DVD player installed in the basement of Town Hall.

But that highlighted two additional problems: Town Hall access and notification.

Town Hall closes at 4:30 p.m. most days, which creates access problems for someone to start and stop the DVD player during off hours. Town Administrator Deborah Eagan said Police Chief Kevin Barry had told her that it was not good practice to have nonemployees inside Town Hall during nonbusiness hours.

Solomon pointed out that Comcast no longer provided Rowley with a video bulletin board for town notices, so even if a program were to be telecast at a particular time, the town had no way of informing the potential audience.

He said the local origination channels for the five communities - Channels 9 and 10 - had been given to Newburyport as part of a separate agreement.

Rowley resident Curt Bryant said Whittet's response to the complaints had been disappointing.

"I would hate to see this go to litigation ... but this is not a good start," Bryant said.