CHESTER Vt. – The Chester Selectboard met on Wednesday, Jan. 15, beginning the meeting by discussing a request for increased funding from Springfield Area Public Access Television (SAPA TV), the public access TV station which covers Chester’s board meetings and other local events.
Aimee Parnell, executive director of SAPA TV, spoke to the board regarding the request for $5,000, a $3,000 increase over the 2025 budget. Parnell explained that SAPA TV was requesting extra funds from all towns within its service area, due to a decrease in cable revenue, and an increase in staffing and equipment costs. For context, Parnell said, cable revenue has decreased by 18%, or $36,000, over the past three years, which is “about equal to the salary of one of our full-time employees, or about equal to an entire year of operating costs for our facility.”
SAPA TV covers all Chester Selectboard meetings, as well as Town Meeting. The station also recently provided equipment in the selectboard’s new meeting space, including microphones, cameras, and audio interface equipment, to allow the meetings to be easily streamed and broadcast.
During the discussion, the board noted that the new open meeting law passed in the last legislative session now requires meetings to be recorded, meaning that SAPA is not only providing a public service, but helping the board to fulfill a legal requirement. “This is fulfilling a requirement that we have without us expending any labor, or minimal labor, and equipment, so to me it’s a good deal,” expressed board member Tim Roper. This sentiment was echoed by several other board members, including Vice Chair Lee Gustafson and Chair Arne Jonynas.
The board ultimately agreed to consider the matter as they finalized the 2026 budget in the coming days.
As an additional point of interest, at a previous meeting in December, the board issued a decision on the discontinuance of a Class 4 portion of Bailey Hill Road. The discontinuance had been requested by Chester landowner Paul Bidgood, who believed that that portion of the road had been erroneously added to town highway maps after being discontinued in the early 20th century.
The board’s decision read in part, “Having reviewed currently known information and documentation as submitted to the selectboard, it hereby resolves that a reasonable and good faith basis exists to find that Bailey Hill Road continues to exist as a town highway.” Therefore, the Class 4 portion of the road will remain open for public use.
The Chester Selectboard’s next regular meeting will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 6:30 p.m., at the Chester Town Hall.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that SAPA TV’s cable revenue has decreased by 15% over the last year. In fact, it has decreased by 18% total over the previous three years.