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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-1990-04-02 - Community Access Advisory Board meeting; April 2, 1990 Present: Mary Jo Dudley, Chair. John Efroymson, Eloise Green, Francis MacKenzie, Louis Metzgar, and Floyd Westerman_ a 1,1) v-- Peter Hess and Lauren Steffanelli, ex officio. 1. Mary Jo reviewed procedures of the board: -The Access Advisory Board meets the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm. Meetings occur in one of the library meeting rooms if available. -Four member constitute a quorum. -Taking of minutes rotates among the members. The minute taker distributes the minutes to members. Two questions came up during this discussion: -Do ex officio members count towards a quorum? -Can the services of the city clerk's office be used to mail minutes and agendas to members? It was decided that City Cable Commission representative, Pete Hess, would ask these questions of the Commission and report back. 2. The CAAB reviewed briefly a summary, prepared by Mary Jo, of issues carried over from last year. 3. The CAAB reviewed rules for public comment at its meetings: -Someone wishing to address the CAAB during the public comment period of meetings should first submit a written summary to the board. ` -Comments should be limited to three minutes per issue. 4. Francis McKenzie was unanimously elected Vice-Chairperson of the Community Access Advisory board. 5. Report from the representative of the American Community Cablevision: A. Policy Manual. Lauren distributed the policy manual which she has recently completed. She noted that all active access producers have received a copy of the manual and have been asked to sign a statement of compliance. Signed statements have been received from all producers. • B. Procedure for handling of complaints received by ACC. When complaints about access programming are received, a form is filled out. One copy goes to the producer, one copy to the public file, and one to the Access Advisory Board. The complainant is referred to the AAB, the Cable Commission, or Common Council if they wish to. When a violation of policy occurs, letters are sent by the access staff to the producer(s) imposing or threatening penalties. C. Quarterly report. Lauren presented her quarterly report on access. We looked in detail at the allocations for repair and maintenance of equipment and for acquisition of new equipment. John raised questions about whether the allocations made by ACC were in compliance with franchise requirements. After discussion, we passed a resolution to the cable commission expressing our feeling that ACC was inappropriately putting money designated for acquiring equipment toward maintenance, and we asked for a decision from the commission. (Resolution attached.) 6. Report from the representative of the City Cable Commission • Peter reported that there was no official meeting of the Cable Commission in March, due to lack of a quorum. Informal discussion with Barbara Lukens, the manager of ACC, concerned whether, when ACC adds channels to its basic tier starting on May 1, there will be room on the tier for additional access channel without taking away any other services. Barbara said that this could be done with the equipment (converters) that ACC will acquire for basic tier subscribers. 7. New Business Bill McCormick submitted a letter of resignation to the Bill Demo, chairperson of the Cable Commission. Until a replacement can be found Bill has agreed to serve ad interim. Members of the commission urged Bill to reconsider his resignation, which has not yet been accepted by the Commission. 8. Public Comment. Bill McCormick raised several points about how the effectiveness of the Access Advisory Board could be improved. They had to do with improving the focus of the board; improving communication with the city, ACC, producers, and the public; establishing an agenda; and establishing a way of handling conflicts and problems involving participants in access. To address this last concern Bill suggested that the AAB appoint an ombudsperson. 9. AAB response to Bills comments: The board responded by passing the following resolution unanimously: RESOLVED:In light of the need for input from the Community Access Advisory Board in problem solving,and the need to provide this in an expeditious manner,we establish the position of Ombudsperson to serve as a contact person for access volunteers,staff members,and producers to handle problems and complaints as a representative of this board. The board unanimously appointed Lou Metzger to the position of Ombudsperson until August 1st, 1990. The next meeting will discuss long range planning issues. 10. The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 pm. Q5-61_31 • Resolution of the Community Access Advisory Board, Passed unanimously, April 2nd, 1990. The Community Access Advisory Board continues to question the appropriateness of including the cost of labor and replacement parts used to maintain access equipment in the 2% city revenue package as provided in Section 14.C.3 of the franchise agreement. The Community Access Advisory Board requests that the Ithaca City Cable Commission ask American Community Cablevision (ACC) to clarify their accounting practices in regard to these items. The board further requests that, if ACC continues to maintain that this is an appropriate use of these revenues, that the Cable Commission seek additional information from the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers (NFLCP) and attempt to resolve this issue.