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Home My WebLink AboutMN-AOC-2025-04-07 1 MINUTES (as approved May 6, 2025) Access Oversight Committee (AOC) Monday, April 7, 2025 at 5 PM (postponed from Tuesday, April 1, 2025) Town of Ithaca Hall (Aurora Conference Room), 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, NY Present: chair Rich DePaolo, secretary Wayles Browne, vice chair Wies van Leuken, member Paul Smith. Excused: City of Ithaca Common Council liaison Margherita Fabrizio. 01. Call to Order by DePaolo 5:07. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions. Van Leuken: add 11 , "Adjournment" and add 7i, "2024 equipment purchase report to city". 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Comments by AOC members. Van Leuken: there was a Channel 13 outage on March 16 from 6:49 PM until at least 8:15 PM. It was restored by 9:54 PM. The TV screen showed the text: "this channel is currently unavailable". As requested, I reported this to Sean Ryan, but have not heard back. 05. Approval of Minutes of the March 11, 2025 Meeting. Moved by Smith, seconded by van Leuken. Approved 4-0 without change. 06. Access Studio Coordinator Report (attached). AOC notes the high number of trainings. a. Budget recommendations: are in the report. Van Leuken: there has been a problem with people not leaving the studio promptly at closing time. Van Leuken was asked to notify producers when she next mails out the agenda. 07. Member Reports a. 2026 Equipment Budget - Resolutions. AOC discussed the purchase of several pieces of equipment that are needed now. Smith moved and Browne seconded a resolution to use the 2025 Budget contingency for these purchases. WHEREAS, the Access Oversight Committee (AOC)’s 2025 Budget includes a contingency of $11,000.00 to purchase equipment as needed for the functioning of Public, Educational and Governmental access operations; and WHEREAS this budget was subsequently approved by the participating municipalities (City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca, Village of Cayuga Heights); and WHEREAS, there is a need to replace and update miscellaneous equipment; now therefore be it RESOLVED, that the AOC approves the use of the 2025 Budget Contingency for the purchase of equipment specified in the attached budget, in an amount not to exceed $2,500.00. BUDGET Genaray LED Fresnel $1,507.67 Lowell Tota Light Kit $ 410.13 Hohem iSteady M7 Gimbal Stabilizer $ 228.72 Seagate 2 TB Portable USB-A External Storage $ 151.18 2 Total $2,297.70 Adopted 4-0. b. AOC agreed to forward to the municipalities their budget recommendations for 2026 with a contingency of $14,000.00. Browne moved and van Leuken seconded the resolution. WHEREAS, Section 15.12 of the Franchise Agreement of January 2003 between the City of Ithaca and the franchisee Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership ("TWC") (“Franchise Agreement”), subsequently assigned to Charter Communications, Inc. d/b/a Spectrum Networks ("Charter)" after Charter's 2016 acquisition of TWC, requires the participating municipalities (City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca, Village of Cayuga Heights) to provide the franchisee with an annual written budget for Public, Educational and Governmental access operations ("PEG") by June 30 of each calendar year; and WHEREAS, Section 15.12 of the Franchise Agreement requires that Charter directs PEG Access Staff to provide the Access Oversight Committee ("AOC") with budget recommendations for the following year by April 30; and WHEREAS, the City of Ithaca's Ordinance #2003-17, Par 18-4-G, requires the Access Oversight Committee (AOC) to provide the Participating Municipalities with a recommended budget for the following year by May 31; and WHEREAS, the Franchise Agreement authorizes Charter to collect $0.15 per subscriber per month to be used for the purchase of PEG equipment and facilities; and WHEREAS, the AOC has reviewed PEG’s current equipment and facilities and anticipates that new or replacement equipment and facilities will likely be needed; now therefore be it RESOLVED, that the AOC recommends a $14,000 contingency to purchase equipment as needed for the functioning of PEG operations, pending receipt and AOC approval of line-item estimates, and be it further RESOLVED, that the AOC forwards its recommendations for approval by the Common Council of the City of Ithaca, the Town of Ithaca Board and the Village of Cayuga Heights Board of Trustees, so that they may meet their obligation to provide Charter Communications with an annual written budget for Public, Educational and Governmental access operations no later than June 30, 2025. Adopted 3-0-1. DePaolo will take the resolution to the Town of Ithaca and forward it to Fabrizio so she can take it to the City of Ithaca and van Leuken will take it to the Village of Cayuga Heights, all before the end of April. Municipal decisions must be forwarded to Charter by the end of June. b. AOC Sales Tax Exemption, Archive and Letterhead - Reports. DePaolo: has asked the Town of Ithaca and found it tax-exempt; asked Fabrizio to ask the City of Ithaca to confirm tax- exempt status, will follow up with her. Also asked her about possibilities for AOC to use a City letterhead. Van Leuken re "Archive": is asking follow-up questions of City Clerk Karasin about preserving AOC's documentation. c. Common Council meetings on Government Channel 15 - Report. DePaolo has written to 3 the City Clerk, will ask Fabrizio to follow up. d. Communications with City Attorney - Report. DePaolo: The long-missing channels 13, 15, 16 will now be carried on Charter's streaming platform by the end of April. We still have to see whether these are included in Charter's channel guide and menu of available channels. DePaolo will still ask the City's opinion about Charter's recommendation to exclude minors (under 18) from the studio. AOC bases its authority to set rules on age of users on the Franchise Agreement. e. Quality of Channel 15 cablecasts. Van Leuken: the volume is still low. DePaolo will contact Charter. f. Outreach Committee - Report. Committee is making a revised schedule for organizing the Peggy Awards for next year; special thanks to Ryan and Foster for posting the winners on the PEG website. g. Curtain - Resolution. DePaolo: Charter has not yet provided the catalog that it uses for buying equipment. Will ask again. Smith will check the box of equipment used the last time this curtain was hung to see what if any of it can be used again. h. Educational and Government Outreach. Last year Cayuga Heights was interested in telecasting its village meetings - but has not managed to so far. They are working with Robert Henry. The School Board was cablecasting their meetings for years, but its new equipment was not compatible and could not get the assistance from Charter it needed and so gave up cablecasting. The Roy Park School/IC can no longer observe their signal being distributed. DePaolo will research this issue. Should there be a separate committee (from AOC) for the Educational and Government channels? DePaolo: unclear; the franchise doesn't put these under AOC's jurisdiction. I will follow up with Robert Henry (Media Production, Tompkins County Communications & Public Information Office). i. 2024 equipment purchase report to city: the report is attached as "Ithaca 2024 Equipment Purchase Report" and is the final equipment report for 2024. 08. Old Business a. Streaming Channel 13. No report. 09. New Business. The payment of 0.15 per month per subscriber doesn't account for inflation since 2003; we'd like to increase it to 0.25. This could be covered by an amendment to the franchise, or in negotiations on a new franchise. 10. Next meeting Tuesday, May 6. 11. Adjournment 6:25. -=-=-=-=- Authority: City of Ithaca code Chapter 18, "Cable Access Oversight Committee". Adopted by the Common Council of the City of Ithaca 11-5-2003 by Ord. No. 2003-17. Available at https://ecode360.com/8386207. Page on the City website: https://www.cityofithaca.org/369/Cable-Access-OversightCommittee Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>. City of Ithaca: Common Council liaison 2024- Margaret (Margherita) Fabrizio, mfabrizio@cityofithaca.org. City of Ithaca: Paul Smith <smithcommapaul@hotmail.com>. Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <RDePaolo@town.ithaca.ny.us>. Village of Cayuga Heights: Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4@cornell.edu>. 4 Web site for the PEGASYS Community Media Center studio, with program schedules: https://pegasys.webstarts.com/index.html or https://pegasys.yourwebsitespace.com/ studio location: 612 West Green Street, Ithaca, New York mailing address: 519 West State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 5 6 7