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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2018-08-07City of Ithaca Cable Access Oversight Committee (AOC) Meeting Minutes Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 5 PM (as approved Sept. 11, 2018) Meeting Room, PEGASYS Community Media Center 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY Present: Chair Rich DePaolo, vice-chair Wies van Leuken, secretary Wayles Browne, Common Council liaison Ducson Nguyen; Access Studio Coordinator Lauren Stefanelli. Absent: member Sue Perlgut (excused, health reasons). 01. Call to Order 5:13 PM by DePaolo. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval of Minutes of the May 1, 2018 Meeting: moved by DePaolo, seconded by Browne, approved 3-0 with one minor change. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report: attached. The AOC is delighted with the reported outreach to the History Center and to Lifelong. The Lifelong course will be free to participants and will be held in the PEG studio. See also 7a. a. Semi-Annual Usage Fees Report for 2018: no money has come in since the March, 2018 report, but Stefanelli has disbursed $40 from the fund pursuant to the Resolution dated May 1, 2018 to purchase a battery for the X10 camera and $50 already reported for a gift certificate pursuant the Resolution dated April 3, 2018. Balance: $320 - 50 - 40 = $230. Re the X10 camera battery: Stefanelli has found a source for a second new battery, will look into getting it. 06. Member Reports a. 2019 Budget Schedule. DePaolo will submit the AOC’s 2019 Budget Recommendations (earmarking $5,000.00 for contingencies) to the Town of Ithaca on the agenda for August, as a report to the Town Board. Nguyen: it was passed by the Ithaca City Council in June. Van Leuken has reported it to the Village of Cayuga Heights mayor. b. Quarterly Franchise Fee Report from City, Town and Village. Van Leuken: Franchise Fees for Q1 of 2018 should have been received. T he Town, City and Village receive checks for the Franchise Fee on time, but worksheets showing its calculation come months later. The City is missing worksheets for Q1 and Q2 of 2017. Nguyen: as of today, the City Comptroller has not received any worksheets. Van Leuken urges the municipalities to request the number of customers served each month. Or, if not possible, for one month each quarter, so that the AOC is provided with an independent method to calculate funds available for the annual Budget. (# customers x $.15/Mo/customer = funds available for equipment). The data shown in Spectrum’s annual report appear to have been arrived at by another method than the simple multiplication shown above. DePaolo will discuss this with the City Attorney. c. Publicity & Outreach Committee. The P&O Committee has not met. Members are out with injuries. Its next meeting will be scheduled in September. 07. PEGASYS issues a. Archiving public access shows: See attached Coordinator’s report. b. Training/Providing Equipment for Podcasts. Stefanelli is not yet ready to give a workshop on making podcasts. She will invite local podcasters to help, including Nguyen. A podcast can easily become a video show (with a slate on the screen). c. Holding Regular Events: The Public Library was seeking people to give workshops in its digital lab. Stefanelli offered a workshop on making TV programs --has not yet heard back. A possible event to hold in the studi o: the Amnesty International group’s Human Rights Day celebration and write-a-thon Dec. 8 or 9, with a movie showing, popcorn, letters to write. A good feature of the Studio for this purpose is that it is handicap-accessible. d. Use of PEGASYS Logo: Stefanelli puts the logo “Pegasys--it’s your voice” after the end credits when she makes a show. Van Leuken will get it electronically to add it to the shows she edits. Other producers should be encouraged to do the same. e. Charter Communications’ Franchise. News stories are alarming but it seems improbable that Charter will really cease operations in New York State. 08. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement. DePaolo: no new draft from Charter responding to the TCCOG (Tompkins County Council of Governments)’ proposals has been received. It’s three months overdue. Chris Mueller, Government Operations, is no longer with Charter; we have the name of a Senior Administrative person as an interim contact, as well as negotiators from Rochester and New York City. DePaolo and City Attorney Ari Lavine will ask Charter for a status report prior to the next TCCOG meeting. 09. New Business: none. 10. Next meeting: 5:30 (not 5) pm, September 11 (not September 4). 11. Adjournment: 6:25 PM. ================ 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> August 2018 Access Studio Coordinator Report  Media Center Projects Access Program Digital Archive: I followed up on my initial inquiries to the library and the History Center, to have PEGASYS programs made eligible for inclusion in their local digital archives. The library has not responded. However, I spoke to the executive director of the History Center, who thinks an access program archive could be accommodated by their local digital archive program. He asked that we wait to move forward until they move into their new building this fall.  Training Class in Television Presentation: I developed a special course that I hoped would appeal to the seniors who use Lifelong. It has been accepted for their fall 2018 course catalog and will run in November. They usually charge a sm all fee for courses, but in our case the fee will be waived. Students, over 4 weeks, will learn how to host a talk show and present information to a television audience. I am hoping this class, which does not require hands-on video production work like our regular PEGASYS classes, will introduce some techno-phobic people to PEGASYS and encourage them to go further towards making their own show. It’s sort of an outreach experiment.  PEGASYS Equipment Maintenance and Repair Our studio audio delay has worked fine ever since Rich fixed the patching. He did an excellent job explaining the way the delay patching works to me. I made a written handout that should enable me to fix any future audio delay problem caused by producer finger-poking at audio board buttons.  Free Stuff We inherited some free stuff from the Buffalo sports studio, including 4 matching chairs, 2 low-glare studio lights, a portable mic boom [called a “fishpole,” to replace ours, which is broken] and a HandyCam-sized digital camera.  Cablecasting Policies Charter’s access policies and program paperwork have still not been issued to us.  Personnel I will be going on vacation from late September through mid -October. Charter staffer Jim Hofecker will be subbing again in the access office and coverin g City meetings, including budget meetings. As in all previous years, PEGASYS will be open 2 days per week instead of 4 while I am gone, and I will work with producers to give them notice of the affected dates, the dates that affect their workflow particularly, and to get their programming in early, so that everyone’s shows will run as scheduled.