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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2013-11-041 Access Oversight Committee (AOC) minutes MONDAY, November 4, 2013, 4:30 PM Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green St., Ithaca, NY (as approved at meeting Jan. 6, 2014) Present: AOC members Wayles Browne, chair Rich DePaolo, vice -chair Wies van Leuken, Liaison from Common Council (City of Ithaca) J.R. Clairborne; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli. Member Mike Brutvan excused (illness). 01. Call to Order by R. DePaolo at 4:45. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval Minutes of the September 16, 2013 meeting. Minutes approved with one change, 3- 0-1. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report a. TWC's Maintenance and Repair Report b. Status of 2013 Budget's purchases. Stefanelli: for the 2013 Equipment Fund (a/k/a Capital Budget)'s revised budget (4/1/13), we still have no PAs [Purchase Authorizations] yet. R. DePaolo will contact Time Warner Cable (TWC) person in charge of government relations David Whalen once again about this. c. Other reports. Channel 97 -6 is a new channel for the City of Ithaca. It is not active yet but is testing videos of City meetings. The Latter -Day Saints General Conference had been the last remaining satellite feed. TWC no longer has the dish on the roof of its Ithaca buildings. AOC was delighted to hear of the interest youth groups are showing in PEGASYS. 06. Member Reports a. Review of PEGASYS's Policies /Procedures (Stefanelli's proposed new policy document) interim report. Van Leuken will have this ready for the next meeting. b. Migration PEG channels - report. DePaolo will again ask to have slides shown on channels 13, 15, and 16 with information about how to switch to the digital adapter box in order to receive the new digital channels 97 -3, -4 and -5. c. Tompkins County's Funding Request [for equipment to use in telecasting county meetings after the Legislature's move to the Old Courthouse a.k.a. Governor Daniel D. Tompkins Building] - discussion (no report). d. Review of Business Hours /Staffing. TWC has not asked Stefanelli to propose any changes in hours to the AOC. e. Review of Usage Fees. Stefanelli: one team of 2 producers didn't want to pay. Otherwise the present fee schedule is working. AOC: we'll leave it at $40/ 6 months. 07. Old Business 2 a. Franchise Agreement. DePaolo met with the subcommittee of TCCOG (Tompkins County Council of Governments); it has finished a draft of the proposed franchise. It will go to TWC in ca. two weeks. b. Equipment Recipients' reports. Studio never received the Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS) annual Middle East debates for broadcast. c. Quarterly Franchise Fee Report from City and Town. The Town of Ithaca promises to scan and send .pdf versions of worksheets. Clairborne wonders what happens to money (if any) left over from the 2003 -2013 franchise after the new one goes into effect. We'll have to keep this question in mind. 08. New Business. None. 09. Next meeting: 4:30, Monday, January 6, 2014. 10. Adjournment at 6:00. Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary. Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2 @comell.edu> City of Ithaca: Michael Brutvan <mbrutvan @me.com> City of Ithaca: J. R. Clairborne, Common Council liaison 2013 - <jclairbo @cityofithaca.org> Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <rd @richdepaolo.com> Village of Cayuga Heights: Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4 @comell.edu> Web site for the PEGASYS studio, with program schedules: http://pegasys.webstarts.com/index.html studio location: 612 West Green Street, Ithaca, New York mailing address: 519 West State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 phone (607) 272 -7272 fax (607) 277 -5404 PEGASYS staff. studio manager Lauren Stefanelli <lauren.stefanelli @twcable.com> 3 To: AOC October 2013 [for meeting Nov. 4] Access Studio Coordinator Report - PEGASYS Hours Mike Cederstrom did a great job covering for me while I was on vacation. He also took over city meetings on short notice when Al Abrahams resigned. - Equipment Repair We have one X10 camcorder out for repair [ #48]. They have asked us to ship them the one non - working unit [ #46] we have, to see if it can be used for parts, and I am doing that. - PEG Channels on the Cable System The County has contacted Time Warner with concerns about their picture quality on channel 15. Our engineer, Paul Cullings, has worked with County video director Jim Blizzard doing some testing over the past 2 weeks. Paul is happy with the result, and Jim's planned elimination of tape playback in favor of digital files is expected to improve the image further. Starting this October, Time Warner has discontinued doing the bi- annual live satellite transmission of the General Conference of the Church of Latter -Day Saints on channel 13. The Church provider was invited to submit DVDs instead [which are available for free from the broadcaster], but he did not pursue this option. - PEGASYS Capital The 2013 budget was submitted for purchasing in July. I do not yet have information about when we can expect the equipment to be received. - Local Youth on PEGASYS in September Sonya Hicks recently completed and cablecast her 2- hour -long, 2- camera video coverage of Southside Community Center's lively CUMEP children's summer camp performance. GIAC brought their youth group to PEGASYS for multiple touring and shooting sessions last month, culminating in a PEGASYS Presents episode with reps from GIAC, Cornell Robotics and the Ithaca Generator explaining how they created science projects for kids, featuring the kids demonstrating their creations [produced by Lauren]. New Roots School's video project group visited PEGASYS last month and will be returning this month to work out how to incorporate PEGASYS into their plans to do a news program.