 Hello everybody and welcome. My name is Lonnie Reed and as a way of introducing myself I should say that I served in the Connecticut Legislature. As a state representative for 10 years, and I quickly discovered how valuable it is when states can work together to address key issues. The Council of State Governments is instrumental in facilitating these kinds of partnerships, and we are grateful for CSG's eagerness to sponsor this webinar. Public access and peril. So what is public access and peril. As consumers increasingly flee cable in order to stream instead stream their shows instead. The process is called cord cutting you've undoubtedly heard it. And but many public educational and governmental program providers peg providers across the Northeast are experiencing significant budget shortfalls with no relief in sight peg services, air local government proceedings town hall and Board of Education programs and hearings, and along with all kinds of community events, and you know parades and games, you know the kids games concern celebrations, and given the demise of local newspapers peg is now the only way most citizens can stay in touch efforts to rescue programming are happening in several states with approaches that vary. And today we're going to meet some very impressive advocates from four states, who are fighting to protect critical local programming. We're hoping again that we can find a way for us all to work together to kind of find solutions for for this issue. But as I said for really incredibly respected leaders in this field. So I'm going to get a quick introductions. And then we're going to get into the program. The first and, and there we go. The first is from Vermont. So, Lauren Glenn, the video and she is the executive director of CCTV, the Center for media and democracy from Massachusetts. So we have David got the air. He is president of mass access, which is also a community media organization that are working to rescue their media. In New Jersey we have Mike Raspoli. He's the senior director of journalism policy at free press and he ran a grassroots campaign for the state to create the civic information consortium. From Connecticut, we have Walter man, who is co chair of the Connecticut Community Media Association and executive director of North Haven Television and Brantford Community Television. Walter, since we're with you let's let's get started with you and you know you've been engaged in the struggle for quite a few years now and so paint a picture for it's you know how is this funding erosion impacting Connecticut's peg channels and and what are we losing and and how are we trying to fight that. Walter. Well, yeah, certainly as Lonnie had mentioned the the whole issue of court cutting is is really affecting the community access providers. Prior to my involvement in community TV, I did work in commercial radio and television and I can tell you firsthand that federal deregulation over the years that relaxed FCC rules on the license radio and TV broadcasters commitments to public service so what happened was a void was created for that type of programming and I think community TV really has you know tried to step in and succeeded in stepping in to kind of fill that void. And in terms of specific things you know whether it's as Lonnie mentioned town meetings, we've gone beyond that with doing live local election coverage, a local public affairs programming that the broadcasters used to be required to do to use those public airways that they use as well as certainly during coven and different types of emergency and public safety programs, a lot of town governments have have turned to us for help in getting the messes out during coven and in various different ways they were faced with a lot of challenges from the municipal governmental level as to how to best communicate with the public and we help them in a lot of ways and they've really turned to us more and more now than than ever. So we've helped out in that area as well as scholastic sports and much more. But we've also, you know, in addition to serving cable TV we've kind of grown with the technology and that we're offering our programming on the internet our websites on platforms like YouTube and Facebook, Vimeo and others. And all this is only possible, because when cable TV started for those that don't know cable companies agreed to provisions to fund and create and fund local community TV, and they did that because they had to use the public rights of way, where the telephone poles are they carry their cables to provide their service and so they agreed to do that back in the 70s and that's really what, you know, created community TV. Fortunately, technology has passed the laws by, and the cable TV companies of course are losing the traditional cable subscriber to streamers or cord cutters, as Lonnie has mentioned, and the cable companies themselves have kind of use those antiquated laws, you know, to push their case that they only need to fund cable TV subscribers, as far as the the funding mechanism for our community TV station so as more cable subscribers drop off. We lose our funding and that's a continual pattern that we see and it's just increasing. What needs to be done is that legislators need to step up and recognize the fact that those very same public rights of ways are used to deliver internet and streaming services so they should be held accountable. And because the technology has changed they're still using the same infrastructure the same, you know, rights of way to provide their services and so they should be held accountable and be required to base our funding on subscribers as a whole, not just television cable television but also internet subscribers and that would assure that we would have long term survival right now. So it's not a rosy picture by any shape of the imagination. You know in Connecticut we continue to push hard for changes at the state level. We've hired a well respected lobbyist now for a couple years it's really worked out well. We continue to push the state's public utility regulatory authority, which has jurisdiction over cable television in Connecticut to make changes. And, you know, we're hopeful that as time goes on and we continue to push harder and harder that we can get those those laws changed but it's really time for legislators to step up and support this before it's gone it's a it's something that has filled the void as I mentioned it's, it's critical to a lot of people. And you know I might add to that one of the things that we found over the years that's really been a benefit to the public is getting a middle high school and college students involved at this level. We've had many that have trained here and learned the broadcasting field and go on to careers and major network so there's so many benefits of what we do and you know we need help from the very people we elect to ensure our survival. Thank you. And I should say, those were watching as your, as your questions arise, please put them in the Q amp a box because we're going to have questions and we're really going to, you know, dig deeper. As we move forward. The next person we want to talk to is micro Spoli from New Jersey, the state of New Jersey, and Mike, waiting for Mike to come up. Okay, good. Okay, there you are. Alright. So Mike you've taken a unique approach to creating a community media consortium in New Jersey, and you said it was invasive on an incredible research that you had done the community hunger for information and news that most immediately impacts their lives. So how's this approach going Mike. Well, first thanks for having me today it's great to hear from you all be with you all. So. So I work for organization called free press which is a national media and technology advocacy organization and we work on a variety of issues that impact local communities and their information needs things like that neutrality and broadband access, as well as what I focused on specifically for the past few years which is local news policy. And so in New Jersey like many other states, like many of you have witnessed and we've talked about local news is disappearing. There are fewer journalists fewer newspapers, funding for for community media and peg stations are being cut. The real world impact of that is that communities people individuals, if you're a lawmaker your constituents have less news and information that allow for them to participate in democracy. We know from studies from research that in communities where local news is deficient or disappeared altogether that fewer people vote and fewer people volunteer fewer people run for public office fewer federal dollars go to districts that don't have a robust local news presence. And so I think it's really important as we talk about these issues that we first and foremost center the real impact on communities that the loss of local news is having. And so in New Jersey we organized around the state and got thousands of people involved to support a bill called the civic info bill which created the civic information consortium, which is a collaborative effort among the state universities that receive public funding and invest that into using community information needs. And so specifically targeting communities that what are which are called news deserts, which we know that news deserts are communities that don't have a local news presence to, you know, to sustain people's needs, typically tend to be communities of color low income communities, rural communities. We know that communities that have been the most impacted by this are our folks who don't have commercial media necessarily on newspapers will serve in their town. And so, so what the consortium does is that invest public dollars into into those communities in local news projects in civic technology projects and strengthening libraries and strengthening community collaboration. And we use this approach in New Jersey, because we know that communities themselves have different needs, and kind of like a blanket statewide policy, or investment in public media wouldn't necessarily meet what these specific needs are. And so I think by investing public funding into communities promoting media entrepreneurship, promoting more civic dialogue. We're just starting to see the consortium now years later making those grants and it's really exciting the tops of types of projects they're investing money into they, some of them look like traditional news outlets and some of them I think what's really exciting about it is that this is a new model that I think many other communities and states can, can replicate. And, you know, the last thing I'll say before I pass it back to you Lonnie is that I think what is what's the most interesting thing that happened in New Jersey was that this was an initiative that sprung up from grassroots organizing from from public campaigning people from all around the state, signed petitions showed up to events shared how the loss of local media impacted them. They testified before committees they lobbied in the State House. This is an issue that that people do care deeply about maybe they don't care about local journalism but they do care about getting news and information about where they live so that they can be connected to their neighbor and so they can know what's happening at the local school board meeting so they can know what's happening in the State House. So, I think that there is a lot of support for new types of public funding for local news in New Jersey was a bipartisan effort. It was something that brought in stakeholders from all around the state different communities different political affiliations. And so, I think the one thing that we learned was that, you know, states, you know municipal bodies need to think about these ideas for how public policy can can best support the needs of their constituents and the people that they represent. Thank you Mike. That's very intriguing. And again, if people have questions put them in the question box because we're going to circle back and deal with that. Our next state is Massachusetts which actually has I think the last count, more community media outlets than any other state so it's a long tradition in Massachusetts, and David, got the air is heads, a collaboration of these media centers. And I know David that you've introduced legislation for a couple of years your organization and I'm wondering you know what it says, and how it's going, and also give us a flavor for the kinds of programs that folks in Massachusetts really care about. David. Thanks very much. I'm not sure if we have the most here in Massachusetts, but we do have the most per capita. Okay, you know it sort of depends on the population I guess so just a few words, and thanks to everybody for for being part of this great group I just want to reiterate that this issue that we're talking about is real. And it's something that's upon us at this point. Those of us in community media have been talking about the eventuality of this decreased funding for many, many years and in fact in Massachusetts. I've been involved in this organization mass access for about six and a half years and we've been talking for several years past about alternative revenue, and how do we bring more funding into our operations. What we're realizing though unfortunately is that no amount of production services or program sponsorship is really going to solve the problem that we're facing. And it's also coming a lot more rapidly than we could have predicted. Before we got on I did a little bit of number crunching and I looked at cable subscriptions in Massachusetts from 2014 to 2015. The difference in the drop off was less than 1% not too bad. The difference between 2017 and 2018 was 3.2%. So you can start to see it's deepening the difference from 2019 to 2020 was 7%. So it's something that's happening quite rapidly here in Massachusetts. So what we've tried to do is introduce a piece of legislation that would update existing law. Our main contention is that streaming companies are using the same public rights of way that the cable companies are using to sell their products. So companies like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, they're not paying a dime back to the municipalities or to the states where they're making all their money. So we introduced this legislation back in 2019. And in that legislative session, I don't think the legislation was was quite ready for it yet got sent to study. So we reworked it and reintroduced it in 2020 and 2021 excuse me, and it is now in both sides of the Massachusetts legislation as House bill 130 and Senate bill 2200. They have slightly different titles, but that's the exact same text. And I just wanted to mention too that it's important to note that this is not a novel idea here in Massachusetts that we came up with. In fact, many states are already collecting assessments on digital goods, including streaming video, mostly in the form of a sales tax. And this is sort of gaining momentum, I think, across the country. In fact, just this morning, I saw that there are a couple of towns in New Jersey who are fixing to sue Hulu and Netflix for a portion of their revenue. So this is an idea that is sort of catching on throughout the country. But in Massachusetts we're hoping to take a slightly different tack on it and what we're trying to do is share those funds collected so it's not a money grab for community media. The way we have it structured is that 20% of the assessments collected would stay with the state. 40% would be distributed to the municipalities, and the other 40% would be distributed to the community media centers who serve those municipalities. To our knowledge, this is the first legislation of its kind and we're happy that this model is being investigated in other states as well. To this point it has about 80 co-sponsors in the House and Senate. We had a very successful legislative briefing in June and we're hoping to garner more support as we geared toward a couple of hearings in September and October. We've been doing sort of as much campaigning as we can on social media, telling our stories and telling of the success, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, all the things and all the gaps that community media in Massachusetts had filled as we went forward. There was so much response from the community media field during the COVID-19 pandemic and I couldn't have been happier with the way that our folks handled themselves and really stepped up to fill in the voids that were being created. There were some commissioners who needed to attend services when their houses of worship were able to do so thanks to community media who solved issues and went ahead and helped out these houses of worship to do live streaming. Public schools and students didn't have access to the tools that they needed or the very lessons that they were supposed to be getting from public schools. Community media stepped in and sort of helped close that digital divide. And when governments needed a little bit more help to get their meetings either done remotely or in a hybrid sense community media was the actual string that tied these communities together. We've been working so much with older adults in the community in Massachusetts here to try to stem this terrible trend of social isolation and loneliness. So we've been trying to deliver as much informative and interesting content to older adults. This is just some of the very few things that community media stations in Massachusetts have been doing and I won't just say Massachusetts because I know what's happening all over the country. There is a sense out there I think at times Lonnie that community media is a thing of the past, you know that this isn't important anymore this was, you know, before we had YouTube and before we all walked around with with video cameras in our pockets. It's something like this well, you know, Walter said it earlier and I happened to agree with it wholeheartedly that that we have evolved as an industry as the technology has evolved. We've evolved to become a very important part of local communities and municipalities and and all the residents have come to really depend on the service that community media centers are offering. And if you need any proof of that, you can ask the parents of the kids who weren't allowed in the gym to watch them play basketball or volleyball, but we're able to flip on a community media station and watch that live stream, or ask the thousands of students as Walter mentioned earlier across the country who get into reputable film and television programs because of their relationship through school with a community media station. You know, if there's so much that we can do and can continue to do. But funding is a big part of it. And if the funding isn't there. We're in a position right now. Today, we're managers of community media stations across the country are having to make very, very difficult decisions about what they're offering as far as programs and who they're employing to. There are literal, you know, the future is so grim you're looking at maybe laying people off or, or do you have to regionalize the way print media has done so much. And so much of that hyper local is lost in that situation so I just want to to thank you all once again for for listening and understanding that this is a problem of not 10 years from now, it's a problem of today. And we certainly could use any help and support that that you might be able to offer. So, thanks very much. Thank you so much, David. That that was well said. And we're going to go now on to Vermont. I'm Glenn Davidian, and you've been involved for many years now make creating a robust community media ecosystem in Vermont and your executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy CC, CCTV Center for Media and Democracy. And I know and I've been reading some of the reports. You've, you've done extensive research. And I know you've pulled together a coalition of community broadcasters, and we're looking at various options you know really really exploring what might work and so wondering if you can tell us about that. Thank you Lonnie and I just like to acknowledge we have, I think three legislators from Vermont, who are watching this panel so welcome nice to see you. And thank you so much for your support. I just, I think I'd like to address three aspects and then get to your question the first is just to give a snapshot of what Vermont community media looks like the second is to talk about the tectonic shift from analog to digital regulation which is really what we're dealing with and I think it's legislators. You are going to be dealing with, in spite of whatever limitations the federal government has has put on states and municipalities to regulate the digital universe. And then the work we've done the peg study to lay the groundwork for looking at new ways of funding community based media and other public benefits. The first is in Vermont we have 25 community media centers we have a population about 600,000 people. These community media centers serve every corner of the state, not only through cable television programming but also online services summer camps for kids on and on the basic community media services we produce about 18,000 hours of original programming collectively. We share that so that these are aired on the 75 plus channels across the state. We have more than 80 employees that are employed, and we utilize about $8 million in subscriber I think it's really important cable subscriber revenue this money comes from cable subscribers, not from the cable companies directly. And that is because of 5%. It's not strictly a franchise fee but it kind of franchise fee for operations and about a half a percent that is spent on capital investments. We were identified by the Vermont legislature last year as an essential service during COVID because of the role that we play in continuity of communications, anything from the governor's regular press conferences which we arrange to have streamed and we're have continuously been streamed to hybrid public meetings municipal meetings, greasing the wheels of democracy so that they can continue. And also community functions like graduations and church services all of this switch to hybrid very quickly. I mean switch to virtual very quickly and now we're in the process of switching to hybrid coverage in person and virtual simultaneously. And that expertise is really important and valuable for our community at this time it's an indicator I think of our community resilience, and also it's a really strong indicator of the kind of state level support that has been given on the community in legislative levels to and local levels to community media. There is, as Mike said, an emerging communications deserts for local newspapers are closing and legacy local media funding models are collapsing, and that is affecting the information and knowledge that the people in our communities have access to. I think it's really important to understand that cable franchise fees, which are based on the commercial use. It's a public benefit, given in exchange for commercial use of the rights of the rights of way is based on an analog regulatory model. And both cable public educational government access cable which depends on the public benefit on the communication side of federal regulation, and E 911 and universal coverage, those services depend on a public benefit on the telecommunication side of federal regulation, both of those are being affected by the decline in use and the cutting not only of the cable courts but the conventional television courts. And so the public benefit model is based on an analog period of time, and it has not been updated to reflect a digital period of time, and Internet Service is not considered either a communication service, or a telecommunication service, and classified as something entirely new, called an information service. And in our business we say it's not a floor floor wax or a dessert topping, if you remember this Saturday night let's get. And so, the federal government has tied the hands of states and localities on what kind of public benefits can be required from information services. The fundamental challenge that we face is that the revenue from the analog era of public benefits is declining rapidly, and we don't we have not updated telecommunications tax policy on the state level, local level, or on the federal level. And that is leaving it to the states and localities to come up with this hodgepodge of solutions, which is what we're talking about today. So while Massachusetts is looking at a streaming tax and sort of identifying this nexus between public rights of way and streaming services, which could be argued, but that's the case Massachusetts is making. This study that the legislature peg meeting public educational and government access of the Vermont legislature funded, and that came out in January talks about a revision of the entire public benefit structure in the state, a looking at a updating of telecommunications taxation policy that affects, as I said, not just cable funding, but E 911 services and universal service funds. So the one of the key ideas which is different than streaming a streaming fee tax assessment, however you want to call it it does depend is one of the ideas but the other kind of core idea which I think ties right into the right of way is this is this idea of putting a fee on pole attachments and the pole attachment fee could offset about maybe up to $4 million in in funding for all of these communication and telecommunication public benefits in Vermont. So, it's a, it's not yet reach the, the level of legislative debate. There are a variety of opinions on whether there are the legal legs for pole attachment fees. There are a lot of competing pressures because the state of Vermont like many rural states is trying to get broadband out to as many communities as possible, and the pole attachment fee is seen as possibly a deterrent to those community based broadband projects. So, that's not a highly loved solution. And then there are the questions of the federal right of ways, which have their own fee structure that is limited to cost and not to cost plus public benefit. So, there's a lot to be discussed here, but I think what's really important for the legislatures in the room to understand is that you are being called upon and are increasingly going to be called upon to, to rethink your telecommunications tax structure, and to do it within the limited confines that the federal government has given you to solve this problem. All of that is to say, I think that Mike very well spoke to the community, the community organizing that goes into convincing legislators that this is important thing to do. You know what's I think a value in Vermont is that our legislative base has understood that this isn't really important because they depend on community media and local newspapers. They have the local media outlets as a way to reach their constituents and and engage them in the process of democracy, and that in the end is what is at risk. If we don't solve this funding problem, and there are a variety of ways to do it, there's ways out of the general fund, there's streaming taxes, there's right of way fees. We've identified revenue and grants that we as the access centers are working on avidly and actively, but we cannot offset this two to 7% annual declining cable revenue without the help of our legislators. Well that sounds easy peasy. And I think we've gotten a real look at how complicated this all is and how many layers there are and how many generations there are and you and you just made that point very well. Lauren Glenn if of how many generations there are of of regulations and legislation to to fund all of these things. We're going to go now into our Q&A period and I'm wondering if Jack, do you have any questions for us. We don't have any questions yet on on the Q&A. Well, we've got our own questions I think so we can work. We're good with that. There is one question just to say Jack from Representative Jantoczko who's from Vermont, and I'm not sure you can see it if you want me to read it. Nope sorry yeah I wasn't looking in the chat I was looking to Q&A sorry about that. I'll read it aloud. Oh yeah there's a lot of chat. The last two sets how does the bill assess the amount of tax on Hulu IMDB or other stream platforms, which should not charge for viewing, at least on many older programs are the lawsuits you mentioned assessing the ad revenue the platforms are getting. And that's from Representative Jantoczko. The answer to that one is that the amount that the companies would be assessed is based on the gross annual revenue, just like they can just like the cable. So, if they're giving away programming for free, they're not really making any money on it. So, I think that you could still get some of that free programming. You know, but it's important to note here that what we're trying to do is put the onus back on the companies, not on the residents. And as far as the lawsuits, I can't really speak to them they're not really in Massachusetts but I assume it's the same sort of thing it's gross annual revenue whether it's coming from ad revenue or from subscriptions, it's probably all lumped in together. And Joan said it's a flat 5% fee on each streaming service. And Joan is a sponsoring representative here in Massachusetts and she's wonderful so I am very glad that she's here. Oh, great. Excellent. Representative Godfrey and Connecticut has hand up. I'm going to allow you to ask a question live that's right. Bob, give me one second. Great. Good to have you with us Bob. Thank you, Lani. I'm very well. You look very well. It's just so good to see like people even if they're talking heads on the screen, little boxes. Yeah, I know I'm not, you know, I've been involved in CS Sheenoff for over 30 years and I just miss the camaraderie. I missed the before and after discussions that go on after these things. The issues I'm curious about is the cable industry is so diverse in that, you know, we've got 169 towns here in Connecticut all based on how far an ox cart could move in a day in, you know, 1776. And so we have almost as many cable companies because they pretty much are apportioned here by town. I'm in Danbury, Connecticut, we have Comcast but when you go to the suburban towns, they have other cable TV companies and what that does is it means there's no ability for the cross border government information and meetings and that kind of thing to to to be able to be accessed by people not in the town. Now, we've we've had in Connecticut, the Connecticut television network, which is a state government owned and operated television station that's that's both those cable and streaming. So, people do have incredible access to the legislative process and procedure and meetings and public hearings. Executive branch agency meetings and press conferences and even judicial branch. Things like the oral arguments before our Supreme Court. Our, we is kind of get that unique in in its, you know, inability to kind of grow outside of the, the, these ancient town lines to be able to, in the 21st century to be able to communicate with our not only our constituents, but those of people around us. It seems to me to be an obstacle. And if you want to start with that. Um, you know, it's all I can say is that we've, you know, we've tried for a couple years to, or more actually to push back to try to get change at the state level, you know, we've, I've and others have testified a day long hearings at the state capital and Additionally, we're battling big companies that have, you know, millions and billions of dollars that to hire powerful lobbyists and, you know, it's, it's always that pushback that hurts us and, and I guess, I don't understand why more elected officials don't get behind I mean, this is, you know, something that also helps them perform their duties in office by getting their faces out to their constituents that perhaps otherwise, you know, they wouldn't be as visible. But that's, you know, that's one of the big things that we always hit that big roadblock up in Hartford is the, the pushback from the big companies. I'm wondering if anybody I mean I've always one of my huge why is not and then I, I watched the FCC change direction. And, and I know when I we talked to a lot of our, our federal legislators they're they're very into saving, you know, community media but the FCC, you know what, when is it going to kind of really revisit it in ways that are helpful to the community media and I'm just wondering if anybody's had any interactions with the FCC that they could share. I just, I have just a couple things one is, but I have a question follow up for Walter which is, are you stream your channels. In other words, there may be these regulatory restrictions, but isn't your content available on screenings online, in addition to just the channels. We do offer most of our content on an in on demand fashion we don't actually stream the channels themselves. Yeah, but we do offer, you know, most of the programming online, and you know I would have cable streaming well why are you giving it away for free. It should be available just as subscribers, which, you know, certainly that that's something to think about but I mean, you know our feeling has always been that to offer it to more people is better but yeah we do offer stuff online we've done that we started that years ago, you know, yeah. And that argument is that train has left the station like 2002 about sharing content, any standard operating nonprofit does that so there's no reason we should be confined but to answer Lonnie's question about the FCC. So prior to the Biden administration the FCC was headed by a well kind of pretty famous chairman pie, and he basically move the FCC to rule that channels and in kind services for peg over and above should be subtracted to be whether it's collected by a municipality or state. And that went to court and that's currently being litigated. And the current FCC, which doesn't have a chair yet, I think that's coming pretty soon. Unless I missed it and it happened. The current FCC has a with a different chair that represents Democrats is going to have a different point of view on this question, and is going to be inclined to be more supportive of peg, but probably rather than starting a new docket. So we're going to try and participate in the court proceedings that have followed the previous FCC's action to promote the essentially depletion of public access funding to the advantage of the cable operators. Which being that other communications providers don't have a peg fee, and the cable operators are seeking a level playing field, so that they don't have to provide public benefits, whereas our approach to the level playing field is that all providers should be providing public benefits. And that's this is a struggle that I just want to underscore for people that since 1990, when the phone companies got into the video business, we have seen this coming and we have been fighting for the reform of telecommunications and communications systems going on a long time. And essentially it's going to have to go back to Congress, and it's going to go back to Congress and FCC will interpret whatever they rule and then the courts are going to litigate it. And this is the constant circle of public benefit until we die, this will still be going on. So we need legislators to take an active role in creating some prototype legislation that can get moved up to the federal government and adopted because so many states are doing something to address public benefits within the authority that they have. And I should say that the acting chair the FCC now is Jessica Rosa Morsell, who actually is an incredibly brilliant attorney who happened to be West Hartford, Connecticut. And she has really stood up for community television and for for consumers and so you know I think the more we can kind of feed into whatever that is and clearly the president, and all of that to kind of understand the transformations that we're all going through and also the sacrificing that communities are going to make would really be helpful and you know to that and I'm just wondering, Mike, what you did and how you put together a grassroots effort that resulted in people, you know showing up at the state Capitol and all of that I'm just wondering how you do that because that feels like we need that as you know part of our arsenal. Yeah, I mean, and I think, I think what's kind of linked to the really good points that other folks here made is that a lot of the reason why local news disappearing is because of the policies that are in place, public policies that promote media consolidation that promote national ownership over local entities policies that that that underfund really amazing community media and then public media. I think what we saw in New Jersey was, you know, recognizing that a lot of these policy changes are needed at the federal level we saw opportunities at the state level where we already kind of had like a pretty active network of people that we were working with. And I think that, you know, I think that there's a there's a few reasons why the civic info bill passed in New Jersey. One being like I mentioned before like the real kind of energy and interest from the public for state government to take action. If you live in New Jersey or have ever been to New Jersey, most broadcast media comes from out of the state, which means it's always been an overly kind of overly reliant on local newspapers, and with thousands of journalists and dozens of newsroom newspaper newsrooms that closed over like a decade or 15 years or so in the state people were really feeling it and we're kind of demanding action. And I think something that's kind of come up here whether you're talking about, you know, Comcast, or you're talking about Gannett or Alden who are huge newspaper owners. The business model of local news is broken, and in many ways is in direct conflict with better informing communities. And so I think it requires a real structural solution that does examine how public funding can be injected into more communities so that so that we come correct for this market failure. And so I think if we're going to see if we're not going to see action at the federal level. I think it is really interesting to look at what states can do what local municipal governments can do. And we've seen lots of really interesting policies out there that are that are being presented. I think we're actually talking about different ways to help fund peg stations in New Jersey it was kind of a new public funding model, but we're also seeing, you know, states take action around taxing online advertising I think that states looking to extend advertising taxes, and then using that money to fund or better fund community information needs Maryland just passed the bill though the money doesn't go to it but we're looking at other states that are looking at extending that sales tax included targeted digital advertising. We're also looking at state, we've also seen states examine creating community information districts so similar to kind of libraries being able to to raise money and dedicate that to help support that type of information need in the community could you create something around like public community media, where a small excise tax is kind of given on anyone in the given area and that money goes towards funding information in that community. So there's lots of really kind of interesting proposals out there. And I think that we can, we can make it happen when we kind of move away from the, how the conversation has been set at the national level which is that, you know, that that media is is kind of is politicized. You know, the fake news conversation or whatever may be or people who are conservative kind of lambasting media and I think when you look at the local level, it's less politicized because we know that, you know, local journalism is really important. No matter what that community looks like no matter what political backgrounds or affiliations those people have. And we also know from for research that less local news in a community the more politically polarized that community is. And so if you're a lawmaker and you're looking to kind of, you know, combat political polarization if you're looking to combat misinformation whether that is online or offline, supporting trustworthy quality local news and information is important. And again it's not just it's not just about saving news. It's not really about that really what this is about is ensuring that people have news and information they need so they can participate in their community. And I am to again sorry to your question Lonnie. The reason why we were able to do this New Jersey was because that was how we framed it we framed it as a crisis in our communities not being able to civically participate, not about saving local news and and that's why I always try to really hit that point when I'm talking to the people to journalists so lawmakers that this is really a matter of making sure that our democracy is healthy. And I'm just wondering, you know, structurally what did that look like so did you go into local communities and get people together. Okay, because that needs to happen. Yeah, we held forums all around the state. We held 10 forums over the course of a year talking to people about how the local have a loss of local news has impacted them what they want out of local news and information, and getting them to come up with ideas, like if you had a million dollars to better inform your community what would that be. And people came up with all different types of ideas that look nothing like how we even like conceive of like local journalism and it was really kind of interesting. And I think that may be issue more concrete to people and to lawmakers and got people really bought into the idea of wow like the state is investing money into better informing my community. Maybe I should put forward my ideas. I'm really happy to share is that several people who participated in those community forums. Once the consortium got off the ground apply for grants and got them. So, you know, this is, you know, I think that the more we involve the public and listen to them and listen to their concerns. We're going to be able to come up with some really creative policy solutions. Sorry, this is Jack, we've probably got time for about two more questions. We have one in the chat from representative blow up Luma. She said what are the biggest barriers to moving forward. Moving forward some of the changes slash initiatives you have mentioned. Another question in the chat. If you can see it. Some biggest barriers to moving forward. Learn Glenners you want to start off as she's one of your legislators. You are speaking. Thank you. I was speaking with another legislator earlier this week and she, what she said was, there's not enough understanding of the urgency of this question. And that's interesting because it's so urgent to us, it's just big and loud in our ears, and that doesn't mean it's shared by everyone else. So, I think, being able to translate this issue in a way that is people find alignment is number one, which of course can be done and I think Mike has got a great example of how it was done. I think it's going to require a long term solution, at least in Vermont. So that would be, I think others would have some other. Walter, yeah. Yeah, I just want to add quickly, no time is running short, but I really think we need to be able to do that. So that would be, I think others would have some other to add. Walter, yeah. Yeah, I just want to add quickly, no time is running short, but I really think we know what Michael said was a great example and, you know, I don't have a lot of faith in the FCC, you know, whether it was the Bush Clinton Obama Trump administration, all I've seen throughout the years is deregulation that has affected localism negatively and I hope that maybe Jessica Rosenwurzel will will be different and that you know that that's going to be a good thing but I'm not too optimistic just based upon the past performance of the FCC and I think we need to, you know, push it from a state level of course as as Lauren Glenn mentioned the key thing is to find ways to effectuate change without, you know, being blocked by the federal preemption of state regulation of broadband and internet. I think that pretty much wraps it up but I have to say I'm leaving here feeling optimistic that we're talking and hopefully hopefully we can expand the space to include other states and other input, and you know and come up with some sort of a collaborative regional model to because I think we're absolutely right. There's something called the Connecticut Green Bank and we're dealing with a lot of energy issues and, and we're only getting, you know, real traction when we regionalize we're really going in with Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Maryland and, you know, that's what gets me to get through attention so I'm really grateful to to CSG for facilitating this program and please everybody check back with CSG. We've got links we've got a ways to stay in touch, so that we can, you know, create an action plan going forward. So I thank everybody I think all of our panelists incredible input, you've done a lot of work. I think CSG, and, you know, wishing everybody some good local news. Bye bye thank you. Thank you everyone. Thanks for coming. Thank you.