HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLECOMM-1992-09-08 City of Ithaca Cable Commission
Minutes of the Meeting y 12, 199)
Present: Mary Euell, Jim Ferwerda, Rick Gray , Peter Hess, Tom Terrizzi
1. The Cable Commission meeting was called to order at 7:45 pm
2. The minutes of the meeting of 7/14 were approved
3. Chairs report:
The federal cable TV re-regulation bill has been reported out of the House-
Senate conference committee. Peter will contact Matt McHugh's office to
obtain a copy of the bill for the commission's files.
The cable company is currently offering senior citizen's discounts only on
basic tier. The franchise agreement requires a senior discount and does not
say that it should be limited to basic. This will be added to items to be
negotiated with ACC.
4. As no ACC representative present, there was no ACC report
5. Public comment:
Bill McCormick told the Commission that ACC was requiring access
producers whose programs are made at ACC to put a closing credit on their
programs crediting ACC for providing production facilities. Bill feels that this
is a content restriction, and as such is not permitted under access regulations.
Bill also suggested that the cable commission should do more to increase
public awareness of its activities. He says the city does not have much of a
profile with access producers. He said that we could do this via press releases
and appearances on access programs such as Round About Ithaca (his show).
Tom suggested that perhaps more information on Commission and CAAB
activities could be included in the access newsletter.
6. Access Advisory Board Report
a) Government Access: Tompkins County is doing more programming,
including a using I-net facilities for a live follow-up to a network program on
sexual abuse. Rick has spoken to Julie Crowell at Coop extension about the
county's plans.
b) A Macintosh computer was purchased for use by the Access staff, out of non-
2% money.
c) Rick and Peter met with Barbara to discuss differences between the CAAB
and ACC regarding the Access Capital budget. Rick recommended several
changes to take advantage of money not previously accounted for. The
meeting ended in substantial agreement on all items other than those being
addressed by separate negotiations between the City and ACC on franchise
compliance.
d) The CAAB will submit the name PEGaSYS to ACC as its choice for the new
name of the access facility. This name reflects the participation of the public
and educational and government organizations on access channels.
e) Rick has proposed a Hi-8 symposium, so access producers and the CAAB
can learn more about videotape technology that may be under consideration
in future Access Capital budget deliberations.
7. Old business
Use of Logos The use of logos by Tompkins Co. and Ithaca College on
automated programming such as the county's bulletin board and IC's roof cam
was discussed. It is the sense of the commission that this may mistakenly
suggest to the public and other potential producers that the government and
educational channels are controlled by those organizations. This was referred
to the CAAB for action, with a recommendation that the practice be stopped.
8. New Business
Leased Access It has come up on several occasions that ACC has not
published a schedule for leased access. The franchise requires publication of
all rates. The Cable Act of '84 requires that 10% of the available spectrum be
set aside for leased channels, which ACC apparently has not done. It is not at
all dear where the public interest lies in these matters, and no decision was
made at this time regarding them.
Annual Agenda We discussed putting Public Access Radio, inter-government
cooperation, new technologies (2-way and data services) and the franchise
renewal process on our agenda for the coming year. We will try to come up
with other items for this list and discuss them at the next meeting.
ACC required credits on access programming It was decided that Peter would
call Barbara Lukens to express the sense of the Commission that the
requirement to credit ACC at the end of each program produced in the access
studios represented an unallowable content restriction and should be dropped
from the Access Center policies.
9. The meeting was adjourned 9:20 pm