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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-2018-02-06 1 City of Ithaca Cable Access Oversight Committee Meeting Minutes February 6, 2018 (approved March 6, 2018) Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY Chair Rich DePaolo, vice-chair Wies van Leuken, secretary Wayles Browne, member Sue Perlgut, Common Council liaison Ducson Nguyen; Access Studio Coordinator Lauren Stefanelli. 01. Call to Order by van Leuken 5:07. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions. Van Leuken: add 6g for discussion of new rules for uploading programs. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval of Minutes DePaolo takes over chairing the meeting a. Approval of Minutes of the November 7, 2017 Meeting: approved with corrections 5-0. b. Approval of Minutes of the December 5, 2017 Meeting: approved with corrections 5-0. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report [attached] a. Maintenance and Repair Report: see attached report. b. 2017 Usage Fees Report showing receipts, uses & final balance: The balance of the fund is about $360. A complete report will be submitted at the next meeting. c. 2017 Subscriber Fee Report ($ 0.15/subscriber/Mo revenues): A complete report will be submitted at the next meeting. d. Studio Upgrade – update. Stefanelli completed her training for the new studio equipment and found the course informative and worthwhile. See attached report. 06. Member Reports a. Election of Chairperson, Vice Chairperson and Secretary: DePaolo, van Leuken and Browne were re-elected 5-0 as Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary, respectively. b. Adoption of Meeting Schedule for 2018: meetings will be the first Tuesday of the month at 5 pm. c. Usage Fees - Resolution. The Committee discussed the use of Usage Fee revenues and unanimously adopted the following resolution. Moved by van Leuken and seconded by Perlgut. 2 Resolution to amend the use of Usage Fees WHEREAS, Section 15.6-4 of the Franchise Agreement between the City of Ithaca and Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership (TWC) of January 2003 requires that the participating municipalities (City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca, Village of Cayuga Heights) assess a Usage Fee to users of the PEGASYS community access studio (“PEG users”) who do not reside in these municipalities, and WHEREAS, a Usage Fee Schedule was first adopted by Resolution by the City of Ithaca at its regular meeting of December 7, 2005 and endorsed by Resolution by the Town of Ithaca at its regular meeting of December 12, 2005 and by the Village of Cayuga Heights at its regular meeting of December 19, 2005, and was put into force effective January 1, 2006, and amended by Resolution by the AOC on October 9, 2012, and WHEREAS, TWC and its successor Charter Communications Inc. d/b/a Spectrum Networks has collected said Fees, pursuant to Section 15.6 -4 of the Franchise Agreement, and WHEREAS, pursuant to this same Section "said Fees shall be disbursed for PEG purposes at the discretion" of the Access Oversight Committee (AOC), and WHEREAS, at its Regular Meeting of June 13, 2006 the AOC adopted a resolution stating that Usage Fees shall be used to staff the PEGASYS community access studio during its manager’s absences, and WHEREAS, the AOC wishes to amend this resolution, now therefore BE IT RESOLVED, that Usage Fees shall be used for purposes to assure the continuation and benefit of PEGASYS’ community access studio operations to the maximum extent possible pursuant to the terms of the Franchise Agreement, and BE IT RESOLVED, that this Resolution will take effect upon the date of approval, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Spectrum Networks or its designated representative shall set up an administrative system to track the collections and disbursement of such Usage Fees and report these data to the AOC as requested. d. Publicity and Outreach Ad-Hoc Committee - report from chair Sue Perlgut. At the Ad-Hoc Committee meeting of January 31 it was agreed to hold the Studio’s Open House on April 2, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. The program is not finalized yet, but will include producers demonstrating the use of the small studio, the editing suite and showcasing a sampling of their finished programs. And from 7 to 7:30 PM famous Ithacans will participate in the contest “Ithaca in Jeaparody” before a live studio audience on Ithaca-related categories. The Committee’s next meeting is at 1 PM on February 21. Perlgut further reported that Tom Stern has joined the Committee. 3 e. Notice of Funding to educational institutions and review of their use of equipment and program production. This will be discussed at the next meeting after receipt of Spectrum’s report on collected Subscriber Fees. Stefanelli noted that no such institutions have shown interest so far. f. Quality of PEG cablecasts: no new reports. g. Uploading rules. Van Leuken is concerned that the proposed new rules for uploading programs might make things harder for some producers who are not so technically savvy. Stefanelli stated that she is working on an alternative way to upload programs that would mitigate these difficulties, and give producers a choice. 07. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement: negotiations with Charter Communications are ongoing. 08. New Business: none. 09. Next meeting: Tuesday, March 6, at 5:00 pm. 10. Adjournment 6:35. ================ Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>. City of Ithaca: Ducson Nguyen, continuing Common Council liaison <dnguyen@cityofithaca.org>. City of Ithaca: member Sue Perlgut <sperlgut@gmail.com>. Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <rd@richdepaolo.com>, <RDePaolo@town.ithaca.ny.us>. 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> 4 February 2018 Access Studio Coordinator Report  Studio Upgrade The Broadcast Pix trainer provided his 8 hours of basic training over 2 sessions in December. This was the last outstanding part of their contract. It will take a bit of time for me to translate what I learned into information that can help producers. I have started developing some new studio training materials.  PEGASYS Open House The subcommittee of Sue Perlgut, Wies van Leuken, Tony Ingraham and Lauren Stefanelli added a member, Tom Stern, who is planning a live studio game show event for the open house. The event has been scheduled for Monday, April 2, 5:30 -7:30pm. A planning meeting was held on Jan. 31. Sue Perlgut has a report giving an update on this project.  2018 PEGASYS Awards The awards are in progress. We have 3 judges and a crew on board and entries are starting to come in. The awards ceremony will be held on Friday, March 23, at the PEGASYS studio. Snacks and socializing from 7 -8 with a live awards ceremony program from 8-9:30pm. All AOC members are cordially invited to attend.  PEGASYS Equipment Maintenance and Repair We had a couple technical problems with the operation of the Broadcast Pix and the KiPro digital recorder in January. The BP control panel would freeze and unfreeze erratically, the KiPro would not record and the BP could not get on the internet. W ith the help of support staff I have resolved them. The freezing was resolved by loading a newer PB software version. The other 2 problems were caused by users doing something wrong [1 of whom was me]. An extensive fire alarm system has been under construction in January. It includes lights and horns in every room, and electronic communication with the fire station.  Cablecasting Policies Charter’s new policy manual and program paperwork is not yet completed. I have been asked to hold off having series producers sign paperwork for 2018 in anticipation of this material being made available later this month.  Cablecasting Equipment Our playback system has been reconfigured, as per my December report. Tape playback is gone, along with 20 non-working VCRs, CRT monitors, Time Base Correctors and the metal racks that held them. Charter supplied 3 new flatscreen monitors [1 for each channel] to replace the CRT channel monitors that were removed. File uploading capability for PEG program submissions has been activated. 2 producers are submitting shows via file upload so far.