Grosse Pointe Shores Public Access Channel Out of Commission

A lightening strike on or near the municipal building early last week caused several outages throughout the building--including the public access channel. 

City Manager Brian Vick said various repairs have been made since the outage and Comcast technicians visited on Wednesday to assess the problems with the cable public access channel. 

The to the City of Grosse Pointe for several hours. The emergency line was the first to be repaired and back in working order, police and Vick said. 

The dispatcher working at the time of the strike smelled burning. Light smoke developed from one of the equipment panels in the dispatcher's station, Vick said, but the panel did not sustain unrepairable damage.

The administrative telephone lines have also mostly been restored, Vick said, with the exception of a few small minor glitches that are still being worked out.

All of the repair work, including whatever must be done to restore the public access channel, which is used to televise the city council meetings, will be put through as a claim on the city's insurance, Vick said. 

Councilman Dan Schulte, who has been pushing for televising all of the city's public meetings, is anxious to have the station restored. He said he's heard from at least four residents who are concerned about the channel's outage.

Televising the council meetings began about 18 months ago--originally on a trial basis. The council had been awaiting proposals for new audio-video prior to this weather related outage.

Schulte questions why such an inexpensive repair is taking so long to be fixed, noting purchases for equipment are made routinely. 

Televising meetings has been an issue among the council and residents in at least the last few months. Residents have complained during public comment portions of the meetings about the quality of audio, which was repaired a few months ago but has since declined in quality again. 

Vick said the necessary repairs will be made to the system to restore it from the damage caused by the storm, noting that more than one problem with it had to be fixed. 

The council's next meeting is Tuesday, which is a special session in which they are slated to have a short formal meeting to approve a recommendation by the planning commission. Following will be the council's informal work session as the Committee of the Whole. The council's next regularly scheduled meeting is May 17.