City

Worcester Mayor Konstantina Lukes presented Alberta “Bertie” Howe with the “Key to the City” in honor of Bertie’s 100th Birthday on September 5. Bertie has lived independently at Briarwood Continuing Care Retirement Community in Worcester for more than 15 years.
A talented artist, Bertie painted well into her 90’s, including a self-portrait of her in a bright pink, broad brimmed hat, painted and exhibited at Briarwood. She has contributed much to the community by her presence and participation, including service as a volunteer in support of a resident-run exercise program three days a week in which she was active for many years.

More than 24,900 photography buffs ( pros and amateurs) where out shooting in more than 900 locations including Worcester as they participated in the second annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk. A few of these talented participating local photographers (local in the sense they reside in or around Worcester) , stopped by at 415 Main St. as they were visiting our city yesterday. Some stopped by to shoot WCCA's unique building and interior. We look forward to their creative works as we are happy to have participated in some small way to this unique event.
More about the walk can be learned Here at this link

For many years WCCA TV 13 has been consistently struggling to improve the quality of channel 13's signal over the Charter Cable System. Our channel seems to be grainy more than less of the time in comparison to all the other channels. The city's franchise mandates that our signal be as good as any other channel. The last complaint we made to the city ended up with the city "looking into it". The signal did improve for a short while. Lately, for weeks the quality of our signal has varied from day to day. We are more than frustrated and our good faith is reaching it's limits. The last time signal quality was addressed the proposed solution from Charter was to remove the coax connection ( that sends our signal out through Charters sub carrier line and onto channel 13 that you see at your homes), and place it back in. Essentially, it now appears to us, that this remedy is one of many , very professional, methods apparently in the arsenal of Charter solutions 1. Jiggle the connecting cable, 2. Remove and place that same cable back in. 3, Give the machine ( in this case modulator ) a nice solid punch. We are pretty confident the major source for the grainy quality is not WCCA's fault because our signal has remained consistent, our equipment has been consistent, and our live stream looks clear, while the quality of the cable signal comes and goes. We imagine it is a cost Charter to keep sending technicians to run test and not find a real solution. We asked Charter to bring in one of their own modulators to see if that makes a difference. We were surprised to learn that they do not have one to use. However, they are looking for one. As of this writing, we are waiting for the technician to arrive. Maybe, this time, he will give the modulator a good swift kick and it will work correctly for another week.If that is really in fact the problem. We think it may not be so, in the mean time keep your snow boots on while watching us, until next time..... We apologies for the poor quality of the video you see we are working on it. If anyone out there has a relatively new modulator we would love to borrow it for a few hours.

Last week we placed a call into city hall asking what the impact would be and if the city has a plan to address Charter's bankruptcy filing. We did get a response from Julie Jacobson, assistant city manager. According to Julie Jacobson we were told : “This particular bankruptcy by Charter is different than a typical Chapter 11, because it is what they call a 'pre arranged' filing, meaning that, the major creditors and Charter got together and worked out a restructuring of the company,which is what Chapter 11 does, but they did it voluntarily, as opposed to being forced to do it. So, the filing, itself, has no immediate impact on the city & Charter franchise agreement and therefore the PEG entities and the payments to PEG entities is secure under the Chapter 11. This may actually be a good thing, in the sense that if Charter is doing this reorganization to shift their debt payments, then they may actually be healthier financially after this. As long as there are in Chapter 11 it has no impact on the [franchise] agreement itself. Of course, if they [Charter] were to cease operations, which would be a totally different thing, that would be a different story all together. However, as it stands now, the franchise payments are going to continue and they honor all their existing contracts.” We thank Julie for her response.