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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2016-12-05City of Ithaca Cable Access Oversight Committee Monday, December 5, 2016 at 4:30 PM Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY As approved February 6, 2017 Present: Chair Rich DePaolo, Vice-chair Wies van Leuken, AOC members Sue Perlgut and Common Council liaison Ducson Nguyen; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli. AOC member Wayles Browne was absent due to a prior commitment. 01. Call to Order by DePaolo at 4:40 PM. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. The minutes of the October 25, 2016 meeting were approved with one correction. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report a. TWC's Maintenance and Repair Report - see attached report b. Studio Upgrade - update The Studio upgrade is still on hold pending Charter’s re-processing of the purchase order that had been approved by Time Warner Cable. So far Com Tech has been re-authorized as an approved vender and a Charter staff person has been assigned to re-process the purchasing order. The AOC is concerned about the delays. Stefanelli has kept Com Tech informed of the situation. They are still on board and ready to start as soon as the paper work is in order. c. Quality of PEG Channels after transition to All-Digital – update. See 6e below. d. Annual Report on PEGASYS’ Accomplishments – update The report is ready and used for distribution. 06. Member Reports a. Report Publicity and Outreach Ad-Hoc Committee Perlgut reported that the Committee had their first meeting, which focused on publicity. Discussed were: linking websites, use of local List Serves, developing a Face Book Page for producers, meeting with producers and holding off-site training classes. The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 18, 2017. b. Third Quarter Franchise Fee Report from City and Village. Nguyen will follow up with the City. The Village got the Town’s Worksheet. c. Term Expirations The terms of City reps Perlgut and Browne expire at the end of the year. Nguyen will follow up with the Mayor. d. Annual Review of PEGASYS' Access Rules, Staffing, Business Hours and Usage Fees For PEGASYS' Access Rules see 7c below. Staffing levels cannot be determined as long as TWC/Charter does not release payroll information. Van Leuken will distribute data on Franchise Fee payments, which show how much funding is available for staffing. The current Business Hours will remain unchanged. They generally seem to work out well for producers. Stefanelli hears on occasion that weekend hours would be more convenient than work day hours. Usage fees (for producers from non-participating communities) will remain as there are. Stefanelli reports that some people find the current fees already too high and do not sign up for training for that reason. e. Communications RE quality of PEG cablecasts, faulty entrance door and release of 2016/2017 Budget funds DePaolo has mailed a letter to Chris Mueller with the AOC’s concerns about these matters and about the poor quality of PEG Channels. 07. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement: negotiations are progressing. b. Spectrum - update: Stefanelli’s PEGASYS Email changed to a Charter address. c. PEGASYS' Access Rules – report City Attorney DePaolo made another request to the City Attorney’s for comments. It was agreed not to wait for the review and use the forms of the Access Rules’ (“the PEGASYS Manual”) as they are now. Upon receipt of the City Attorney’s comments, the Manual can be revised if necessary. Van Leuken will bring the current draft of the PEGASYS Access Rules to the next meeting for AOC approval. 08. New Business: none 09. Next meeting: Monday, February 6, 2017. 10. Adjournment: the meeting was adjourned at 5:50 PM. Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>. City of Ithaca: Ducson Nguyen, Common Council liaison 2016 <dnguyen@cityofithaca.org>. City of Ithaca: member Sue Perlgut <scperl@verizon.net> Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <rd@richdepaolo.com>. Village of Cayuga Heights: Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4@cornell.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@charter.com> December 2016 Access Studio Coordinator Report 2016 Equipment Fund: Studio Upgrade to HD Our vender, Com Tech, was re-authorized as an approved Charter vender last week, and we have our own purchasing staffer who is now working on submitting our purchase requisition. I have ascertained the current account number of our PEG collections, but it is still an unusual situation for them – to do a purchase that would ordinarily be a capital project with operating funds – so he is working through his department to get this approved. Equipment Repair and Maintenance Our producer-damaged editing laptop has been replaced. The producer, Tom Stern, agreed to pay the depreciated value of the computer [$530], which would not be enough to replace it. However, it would be enough to buy a used computer of the same age, model and specs. But we had an even better opportunity: TC Trust donated several dozen laptops to Ithaca Re-Use. Another PEGASYS producer showed up with one he had bought to show me. It was the same model and high-performance specs as our broken one. So I sent Tom to see if there were any more like that and – there was one, which they refurbed for us and sold to Tom for $250. Jim Blizzard donated his time to transfer the C drive and the software from our damaged computer to the new one, and it now is in service and working perfectly. New Live Opportunity Jim Blizzard pulled off yet another amazing coup for PEG last week. He televised the Tompkins County Housing Summit [11/30-12/1] live for a total of about 12 hours onto government access channel 15 using an internet transmission to his county legislature control room, and then on to channel 15. Since one day was held in Kulp Auditorium at Ithaca HS and the other day was located in the Greenstar Space, he had to figure out internet issues twice. From his description of his difficulties getting internet transmission connections that could transmit [as opposed to download] a large video signal, I gathered that he has not found an easy way for your average producer to “go live” from anywhere. But he has proven it can be done with sufficient staff expertise. Public Relations Julie Holcomb printed color copies of our 2015 Annual Report and distributed them to the mayor and council members. Wies van Leuken took copies for Cayuga Heights reps and I have copies for Rich to distribute to Town of Ithaca reps. The AOC’s subcommittee on public relations met on 11/16. They suggested we explore new means of getting information about PEGASYS to local residents. I have started a discussion with both Ithaca Freeskool and Lifelong about getting some form of a PEGASYS class included in their respective online catalogs. Both seem open to this. Sue suggested exploring Facebook. I was told that PEGASYS is not likely to receive approval for a Facebook page. However, we can facilitate producers doing their own social media promotion. Accordingly, I invited ICTV to show us what they do. ICTV will be sending a rep to meet with anyone interested after this AOC meeting [6pm] to explain how ICTV and ICTV producers utilize social media.