Hi everyone –
By now you know the story. Our attempt to pass legislation making it law that cable companies offer HD channels and electronic programming guides to community media stations was thwarted at the last minute and left off the Economic Development Bill back in August. This was a bitter pill, but we’ve swallowed and moved on.
In an effort to come back even stronger in next year’s legislative session, MassAccess has entered into a contract with O’Neill and Associates of Boston. This lobbying firm is headed by Thomas P. O’Neill, who is the son of former Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neill. O’Neill and Associates has extensive experience working with non-profits such as MassAccess to not only lobby for support, but also to help create a public relations campaign that will transform our goals into a prominent issue that legislators and the general public will take note of. We are extremely confident that the effort we put in with the team at O’Neil and Associates will deliver the results we’re all hoping for.
Although there will likely be a small group of board members who will be working closely with the firm, we want to keep the MassAccess membership engaged in this process as much as we can. One of the first steps we are taking is to fill out an introductory questionnaire which will help O’Neill and Associates identify our needs, our strengths and perhaps most important, our weaknesses. We’d like to invite all of you to fill out the questionnaire as part of this process. We need your input so that we can represent you properly. The questionnaire can be found HERE. As we are on a tight schedule, we need these responses by Wednesday, October 26th.
If you have any questions about the process or if you have some information that you think might be helpful, please reach out to one of the MassAccess board members. We’ll be giving updates on our progress at our Fall Meet & Greets starting next week. Hope to see you there!
– MassAccess Board of Directors
