Fairfield County residents can tune in to Optimum cable Channel 79 to watch town government meetings, but a proposal now before state regulators could make that local access harder to find.
Currently, government meetings are carried on town-specific cable channels and funded through a system administered by the Area Nine Cable Council, a volunteer organization that serves as a liaison between municipalities and Optimum under Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) regulations. The channels are supported by cable subscriber fees.
A petition pending before PURA, known as Docket 25-09-07, would replace the town-by-town television model with a regional channel that combines meetings from multiple municipalities.
Douglas K. Dempsey, Easton’s representative to the Area Nine Cable Council, said viewers would have to sift through programming from as many as 10 towns to find meetings relevant to their community.
“This is very much an under-the-radar issue that the public has little reason to know of,” Dempsey said.
Under the proposal, operational control of public access programming would shift from Area Nine to Farmington-based Nutmeg Public Access Television, consolidating programming from several Connecticut towns onto shared channels.
The change would affect Area 1, the “Norwalk” cable region, which includes Easton, Norwalk, Greenwich, Darien, Westport and Wilton, as well as Area 20, the “Litchfield” cable region, which includes several towns in northwest and west-central Connecticut.
In a petition letter submitted to PURA on Sept. 9, 2025, Joanie Wedler, executive director and CEO of Nutmeg Public Access Television, argued that state law allows for reassignment of cable access operations to a qualified nonprofit and said cable operators have expressed support for divesting those responsibilities.
“Nutmeg TV is fully prepared to meet the requirements for operational management of community access in the affected service area,” Wedler wrote.
Opponents of the proposal say it would make local meetings harder to find, reduce resident participation, and eliminate about $8,000 in annual funding per town for local cable operations, while diluting accountability at the municipal level.
Fairfield County residents and local officials, including Easton First Selectman Daniel Lent, Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo and Greenwich Selectwoman Rachel Khanna, have submitted letters to PURA urging the agency to reject the petition.
A Darien resident wrote that the proposal would make it significantly more difficult for residents, particularly parents with busy schedules, to access timely and relevant information about local government.
Easton Selectman Nicholas D’Addario also opposes replacing dedicated local cable channels with a regionalized model.
“Requiring residents to sort through programming from multiple towns to find their own meetings would reduce transparency, accessibility, and civic engagement,” D’Addario said. “Local government programming should remain local, easy to find, and focused on the community it serves.”
Dempsey said he serves as Easton’s representative to the Area Nine Cable Council as an unpaid volunteer, attending meetings and applying for grants funded by annual fees collected from Optimum cable customers. Those funds are used primarily to cover video production labor, technical maintenance and equipment such as cameras, microphones, computers and servers.
Each town in the Area Nine region has its own representative and handles its own meeting recordings, which are uploaded through Optimum equipment installed in town halls and transmitted through the company’s Norwalk “head end.” From there, the recordings are broadcast only to that town’s cable subscribers on Channel 79 for government programming and Channel 78 for education.
“No town is compelled to record meetings,” Dempsey said. “Most do it for the transparency expected in the modern media age.”
Dempsey added that a similar attempt to regionalize cable access occurred about 20 years ago and was ultimately rejected by local communities.
Public comment for the proposal is set to close on Feb. 27. PURA will rule on the proposal later in the year.
