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Saco River Community Television

Saco River Community Media was preparing for another business-as-usual season of town meeting oversight and community event coverage when the pandemic shut the station down in March of 2020. 2020 was a challenging year for all of us. Prior to this date, we had just emerged from a long and difficult legal challenge to cable giant Charter/Spectrum. In 2019-2019, Charter/Spectrum moved the Town of Buxton’s community channels to the end of the dial Channel’s 1301, 1302 and 1303. For 20 years, Buxton’s local channels were easily located at channels, 2, 5 and 7. With no consultation with town officials or SRC-TV, Charter/Spectrum jettisoned your local channels to what we called “digital Siberia.” As a result of this unilateral decision, a cable consumer advocacy group known as the Community Television Association of Maine (CTAM) introduced LD 1371, an act to ban discrimination of community channels. The legislation was successful and signed into law by Governor Janet Mills. A federal judge’s decision to return your channels to the original lower tier placement was appealed by Charter/Spectrum. The cable company lost on appeal and your community channels are now back to where they once were at 2, 5 and 7. Once again though, Charter/Spectrum has appealed the case to a court in Boston and we are awaiting another decision on the matter in 2021. We believe it is necessary to challenge corporate decisions that have a negative impact on Maine towns. Buxton has relatively few sources of reliable local news and information available to the citizenry. Community channels allow local people to view Board of Selectmen meetings, Planning and school board meetings from the comfort of their homes, on cable or on the internet. In a town as large as Buxton, having the ability to reach your constituency makes an important difference, particularly during a pandemic when many residents are unable to leave their homes. People are really hurting during this pandemic. Saco River Community Media has created a public service announcement informing citizens of the hours and location of Buxton’s food pantry. We continue to assist the municipalities in our six-town consortium with Zoom related technical assistance. And as always, we are here for the Town of Buxton if you need a public address system, sound equipment, cameras and staffing for community meetings taking place outside of the town hall setting. These services are available to you and your constituents as needed. Our hope is that we can turn this pandemic around so we can once again promote the wide- ranging interests of Buxton citizens. In years past, Saco River Community Media has been proud to record and broadcast resource promotions and community events taking place at both of Buxton’s libraries, the Saco River Theatre, local churches, and the Buxton – Hollis Historical Society, to name just a few. Feel free to reach out to us at 727-5702 if you would like to inquire about equipment rentals or broadcast time. We are here to help. Let us hope positive change is on the way in 2021. Respectfully submitted, Patrick A. Bonsant Director, Saco River Community Media

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