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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-2004-03-30Minutes Meeting of the PEGASYS ACCESS OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE March 30, 2004 at 5:15 PM Conference Room, Time Warner Cable, Ithaca, NY Present: Committee Members: Dan Cogan, Wayles Browne, Ellen Morris - Knower, Will Burbank, Wies van Leuken Time Warner Cable Staff: Thomas Doheny, Lauren Stefanelli Members of the Public: None 1. Call to Order Dan Cogan called the meeting to order. The agenda items were mutually agreed upon by the Committee and are the same as the headings of these minutes. 2. Introductions This was the Committee' first meeting. Cogan introduced the members to each other and to the Time Warner Cable staff members. Cogan stated that neither Burbank, representative of the Town of Ithaca, nor van Leuken, representative of the Village of Cayuga Heights, had received their formal appointments by the City. Their appointments will be made at the next Common Council Meeting on April 7, 2004. 3. Date of Next Meeting The next meeting will take place on April 29, 2004 at 9AM. Committee members stated their preference for meeting in a publicly accessible location such as City Hall or Town Hall. Burbank will check whether a room is available at Town Hall for the April meeting. 4. Budget 4a. General Discussion Morris - Knower stated that she was interested in setting up a studio in Boynton Middle School and asked whether she was in the right committee. Cogan confirmed that she was because the committee, per Section 18 -4a of the Franchise Agreement reviews capital purchases even when it cannot, per Section 18 -4b, make rules for Educational and Government programming. A $0.15 per month surcharge per subscriber in the three participating municipalities (City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca and Cayuga Heights) will result in an estimated funding stream of $200,000.00 - $224,000.00 over 10 years for capital purchases. The Committee's budget decisions must be made no later than the May meeting. Doheny distributed copies of the "10 -year Access Capital Plan" for the PEGASYS studio, which assumed the availability of $200,000.00 over the next ten years or $20,000.00 per year for capital purchases. The document was entered into the minutes. The 3 participating municipalities have agreed to provide 1/2 percent of their franchise fees for PEGASYS staffing. When negotiations for the current Franchise Agreement began, a participation by 11 municipalities was anticipated. The resulting revenues would have continued to pay for the 3 Full Time PEGASYS employees. The actual revenues from the 3 municipalities amount to approximately $38,000.00 per year, almost enough to retain one full time staff person. Of the PEGASYS staff, TWC retained Stefanelli for 35 hours per week to run PEGASYS. Stefanelli is a 15 -year employee of the company. Her salary and overhead exceed available funds. TWC is assuming the additional costs. In addition, Stefannelli works an additional hour per day for TWC, adding up to a 40 -hour workweek. Van Leuken stated that the services provided by Stefanelli at the Studio were of a very high quality. This was important because the volunteers who use the studio cannot function without quality technical assistance. TWC is responsible for the costs of the PEGASYS building itself (including maintenance, taxes, utilities) and the maintenance of the equipment. Doheny stated that the PEGASYS studio is open a total of 30 hours a week at the following schedule: Monday and Wednesday 4:00 PM - 10:00 PM, Tuesday and Thursday 5:30 PM - 11 :30 PM and Friday from 4:00 PM - 10:00 PM. Producers can use the studio and editing facilities from Monday through Thursday. Fridays are reserved for classes. Doheny reported that the City has requested the videotaping of more meetings than covered by the Franchise Agreement. The City is being billed $15.00 per hour, which covers Time Warner's costs of hiring temporary workers. 4. Budget 4b. User Fee Doheny asked the Committee to make it its priority to establish a user fee for the use of access equipment and /or facilities by access users from non - participating municipalities. Access Oversight Committee Page 2 Minutes 3130104 The term "access user" includes not just producers but also crew members and trainees. It does not include guests appearing on programs. It also does not include residents of the Time Warner's service area, encompassing participating and non - participating municipalities in all of Tompkins County except for Enfield, but including Candor, who drop off tapes for playback at PEGASYS. Staff estimated that about 20 hours of the 65 hours of weekly playback time are taken up by these requests. Staff calculated that for 2003, out of 118 access users about 35% were from non- participating municipalities. The possible ways to structure a user fee for users from non - participating municipalities was discussed at length. Doheny suggested the possibility that users be charged the same "per user" fee that the participating municipalities are effectively paying. Currently, if you divided the total contribution from the three municipalities by the number of users from the municipalities, it would result in a $28 per month per user fee. As the total number of users increased, the per user fee would decrease. The ensuing discussion made clear that there is a wide variety of uses of PEGASYS by access users, with some using the facilities for training only, some only for editing, some use only the portable equipment and some just the studio, with combinations of every variety within those uses. Should only producers pay a fee, or crew members as well? Should people pay for the initial 4 -week training course? Should the fee be per hour or per month? Should users be charged the same rates as are currently used to charge commercial users who use our equipment? How should fees be collected and kept track of? How to ensure that the cost of its administration be minimal? Van Leuken stated that members of her crew included persons not living in a participating municipality. Should these people pay for the privilege of assisting her or should she incur this charge as producer? Burbank stated that he would consider for his own municipality to subsidize this benefit to the public. Cogan stated that it would not be good to have a high barrier to the use of the studio, but recognized that some sort of fee should be charged. Stefanelli stated that the Franchise Agreement talks about a per -use fee. Doheny did not expect new municipalities to join in the franchise until their residents had to pay fees for the use of PEGASYS. Stefanelli asked that ff fees are to be imposed, it would be useful to announce a date in advance so that producers could make a presentation to their towns with help from herself or from the committee if need be. Cogan indicated that he would be willing to attend meetings of various municipal boards to request their participation. A municipality would need to appropriate its own money Access Oversight Committee Minutes 3130104 Page 3 or change the franchise agreement. Cogan clarified that by law a municipality can collect up to 5% of the franchise fee, but some now charge only 3% or 4 %. Such a municipality could possibly raise the fee and use the increase to pay TWC for PEGASYS access by its constituents. Van Leuken asked why other municipalities had not wanted to participate. Doheny explained that public access had a bad reputation due to the contents of certain programs. The Committee asked Time Warner staff for the following information to be made available for review at the next meeting: 1. List of users and their municipalities, broken down by their role (producer, crew member, class participant, etc.). 2. Fee structure for commercial users of PEGASYS 3. Recent broadcast schedules for Public Educational and Governmental Access. 4. Budget 4c. Acquisition PEG access equipment The PEGASYS budget follows the calendar year. The Committee learned that the current Franchise Agreement was not fully executed until December 2, 2003. This means that most of PEGASYS' FY03 budget was subject to the terms of the previous Franchise Agreement and subject to the control of the City of Ithaca. It was learned that this budget had a remaining balance. Cogan will research the availability and amount of these funds. Morris - Knower stated that Boynton Middle School used to have a TV studio, but returned the equipment back to TWC. It now wants to set up a studio to cablecast its own news program on Channel 16. The Committee agreed that it must develop an application and approval process and come to a decision on how much equipment it is willing to give away under a long -term loaner program and how much to keep for PEGASYS uses. Van Leuken pointed out that PEGASYS is in need of several items. The Committee discussed the possibility for members of the Ithaca School District to come before the Committee to present their funding proposals. Morris - Knower asked why the capital plan speaks of a long -term loan pool for educational access. Stefanelli explained that under the old franchise agreement, TWC could not give equipment away, only loan it. Doheny stated that TWC hopes that when equipment is given to schools it will produce programs that will be shown on the access channels. This is not currently a condition for receipt of equipment. Access Oversight Committee Page 4 Minutes 3130104 The Committee asked Time Warner staff for the following information to be made available for review at the next meeting: 1. Capital budgets from the last 3 years, with details on actual sources and uses of funds. 2. The amount of money in the capital fund from the old franchise agreement. 3. The minimum amount of equipment that a school would need to get up and running producing TV. 4. Copies of the grant application from Boynton Middle School and other educational users wishing to set up studios. 5. Election of Chair The Committee asked Cogan to act as the Chair of the Committee. Van Leuken will prepare a draft of the minutes, which will be emailed for review to all committee members and returned to van Leuken before the next meeting. 6. Adjournment Doheny stated Stefanelli will attend meetings to represent Time Warner. He himself will attend meetings only occasionally. The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 PM. 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