GRANBY — If no one steps up to take over operations, the town’s cable access station will close by the end of the fiscal year in June, according the station’s leadership.

“Our executive board is down to two members. The problem is, none of us have an interest in running the station,” Mark Bail, president of the nonprofit Granby Community Access Inc., said in a statement. “We can’t find people to serve on the board.”

The station’s former director, Alex LaMarche, left last year to head the cable access channel in Hadley, and the treasurer resigned due to time commitments, according to Bail.

LaMarche’s new job gave him a pay and benefits package that Granby couldn’t match, Bail said. His duties are now divided among three part-time employees.

The station doesn’t have enough money to compete for a limited pool of employees, but Bail believes it still has enough income to keep going for years. It receives $80,000 to $90,000 a year in franchise fees, he said, and even though cable subscriptions are on the decline, that revenue, along with investments made by previous boards, covers salaries, rent and operational costs.

Bail, a former Select Board member, proposes that the town take the station over.

“In pretty much every town I know of, it’s a town department,” he said by phone Thursday.

The station’s programming consists almost entirely of town board meetings and high school sports.

“We’re providing a town service,” he said. “If there’s going to be decisions made, it should be by the town.”

He said he has approached town officials and was asked for more records.

“It wasn’t a hard ‘no,’” he said, acknowledging that he expected the town to be cautious about the proposal.

Bail has scheduled a remote access meeting for the station’s membership April 19 at 6 p.m.

If the town or some other group doesn’t take it over, he anticipates that the board will dissolve the nonprofit, which he said would be unfortunate.

“The people who started it built something good,” he said.

]]>