The WW-P school board has approved a five-year interlocal services agreement with West Windsor for cable television programming. The agreement, approved at the board’s May 13 meeting, sets forth commitments and responsibilities for both parties regarding programming on the township’s cable channel.##M:[more]##
West Windsor and Plainsboro each have a dedicated television channel for local municipal and school programming. Under the approved agreement with West Windsor (the school board has to approve a separate agreement with both towns) the township provides the local channel and pays $28,”000 a year to the school district to employ a station manager. Plainsboro pays the other half of his salary. The agreement with Plainsboro was approved in October.
Under the agreement, West Windsor is responsible for any additional equipment needed for township video recording, production, and broadcast. The school district is responsible for building and equipping the district’s television studios, and the district will continue to provide training in the operation of the installed equipment and recording and editing equipment West Windsor purchases. The agreement also gives the district title to the studio equipment (not in the council chambers) and is responsible for its upkeep, maintenance, and replacement. The school district is also responsible for maintaining a community bulletin board for broadcast and for overseeing the station’s operation.
The agreement also sets out airtime. Weekdays from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Tuesdays from 4:30 p.m. to midnight will feature school district broadcasting, while Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:30 p.m. to midnight, and all other times, is reserved for West Windsor.
West Windsor has a cable television franchise agreement with Comcast, under which the cable company is required to provide a Public Educational and Governmental (PEG) channel to the township. School officials said they would be looking into whether Verizon, which was granted the state’s first system-wide franchise by the state Board of Public Utilities in 2006, would also be required to provide a channel.
