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Home My WebLink AboutMN-AOC-2020-08-18 1 MINUTES Access Oversight Committee (AOC) (as approved Oct. 6, 2020) Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 5 PM The AOC held its meeting by ZOOM Conferencing (thanks to Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk, Town of Ithaca) Present: chair Rich DePaolo, Gossa Tsegaye, secretary Wayles Browne, Common Council liaison Rob Gearhart, vice chair Wies van Leuken; Access Studio Coordinator Lauren Stefanelli; employees of Charter: Lauren Kelly, Director of Government Affairs – Finger Lakes Region, Charter Communications, Mike Montesano, Sr. Manager, Programming, Charter Communications, Amanda Lanham (by telephone), Director of Local Government Affairs and Franchising, Charter Communications 01. Call to Order by R. DePaolo, 5:00. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: For the sake of the guests, AOC decided to begin with item 6a: playback system (replacement of non-functioning NEXUS). L. Stefanelli gave background on the failure of the previous system. DePaolo invites Charter representatives to explain why they propose that a new NEXUS should be bought entirely out of AOC's budget. A. Lanham: if you want playback from Ithaca rather than from Rochester, you should pay for it. DePaolo: the Franchise Agreement states that Charter has to do it from Ithaca. Lanham: don't be adversarial. DePaolo reads §15.3 of the Franchise Agreement, "Access Facilities...at the present location." Lanham: the next sentence talks about using 15¢/month from subscribers for replacing equipment. Nothing in this Franchise Agreement nor in New York State Public Service Commission regulations requires Charter to provide playback equipment in Ithaca. Lanham: NEXUS is production equipment. W. Browne: "at the present location"—isn't that Ithaca? DePaolo: wouldn't Charter have to spend money to house a NEXUS in Rochester? M. Montesano: I'm not an engineer, but we do have a blade system in Rochester and there are some spare channels on it. Lanham: see the FCC's 3rd Report and Order on Implementation of §621 Federal Communications Act (effective Sept. 2019). (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-358439A1.pdf) DePaolo: isn't head-end iNet equipment the responsibility of Charter? W. van Leuken: it is in the current Franchise Agreement. G. Tsegaye: So as not to get into semantics, we need to get the City Attorney to interpret the present franchise. Nobody remembers the original context now. We need to go on serving our municipalities. DePaolo: we'll get legal interpretation and a technical reading of the proposal. DePaolo: the Consortium of Municipalities has been drafting a proposal for a revised Franchise for several years. Lanham promises to e-mail exact names and titles of the three guests from Charter. She and L. Kelly leave, Montesano remains in the meeting. 2 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval of Minutes of the July 7, 2020 Meeting. Minutes approved with one change 5-0-0. Van Leuken asks: can we buy the City of Ithaca's old NEXUS? Stefanelli: the City is trading theirs in on a new one, but we could ask the City if we could buy it from them. DePaolo: is it true that the High School also has a NEXUS that they're not using? Answer: yes. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report: given orally. a. Maintenance and Repair Report. Stefanelli: we had to halt signouts of equipment because one producer's house had bedbugs which got into the equipment. The studio and its equipment were treated by an exterminator. Checkouts will probably resume tomorrow. b. Purchase of 3 laptops - update. Stefanelli: it turns out our current Premiere editing software is not compatible with the new laptops. At present we're running Premiere CS6, which is the last purchasable version (later ones require annual subscription to use Cloud storage). I am now trying an old version on the Windows 10 operating system. Adobe Premiere is used throughout and we wouldn't want to have one type of software on our desktops and another on our laptops. I need another month to figure out what to do. c. PEGASYS’ operations during the COVID-19 lockdown - update. The studio is still closed to the public. We will restart the loan of equipment soon (after bedbug extermination) in the same “curbside” pick-up and drop off manner as before. We're taking care to stay in compliance with New York State rules and Tompkins County Health Department requirements. AOC asks: can the studio reopen while keeping to the protocols? DePaolo: Who would sanitize equipment after use? Tsegaye: the users themselves, unless we want to change Stefanelli's job description. I will sanitize equipment after demonstrating it to students. R. Gearhart: this is actually Ithaca College's protocol. Has Charter developed a protocol for other facilities? Montesano: we discussed limiting interactions within the facility, also bought PPE and sanitizer and wipes. We can't always rely on users to clean. Stefanelli would wipe down studio equipment after use just as she does with equipment lent out and returned. Browne: does this refer to other facilities as well as Ithaca? Montesano: yes. DePaolo: is this a corporate decision or left to Stefanelli's own discretion? Montesano: we've always made sure that the Committee is also part of the discussion. Tsegaye: It's hard to keep one's distance in a small room like the one I use. Montesano: when we do open, it'll be with minimum people, just 1 in the control room. We've been removing chairs from the central area; we'll want users to go directly to what they'll use. We'll be watching developments as Cornell reopens. AOC: we will evaluate the situation at the next meeting. Van Leuken asked about the sign on the studio door "PEG is closed". Stefanelli will replace it with a notice that states that the building is closed but that its operations are continuing. 3 Van Leuken asks: are producers handicapped by not having the studio to use? Stefanelli: producers who previously used the studio are now waiting for reopening, but I get programs from holders of Zoom meetings. Note that I will be away the first two weeks of September; after that I will want AOC's advice about reopening. Tsegaye: Can you ask existing producers how they feel about their own situation? Stefanelli: I will ask them. Gearhart: it's also important to track what other public facilities are doing. d. Peggy Awards - update. Stefanelli: the Virtual PEGASYS Awards were co- hosted by Jeremy Menard of Ithaca College and myself. Producers accepted their awards by Zoom or with pre-recorded videos. It was cablecast and live streamed on YouTube last week and will be rebroadcast on upcoming Fridays. 06. Member Reports a. Playback System - discussion. See above under 02. b. 2019/Q3 Franchise Fee Reports from City and Village. Van Leuken: the Village and City's Q3 report for 2019 is still missing. Gearhart will ask again. c. Publicity and Outreach. No news. Perhaps AOC should reconstitute a subcommittee? d. iNet maintenance — response from City Attorney. Gearhart: I have other issues for the Attorney too and will ask him about this as well. Tsegaye asks: who actually uses the iNet in Ithaca? Can we reignite it? What future does it have? DePaolo: iNet is included in Franchise. It has to be active or else there is a change in the responsibility. Stefanelli clarifies: in 2010-2012, Time Warner Cable reached out to those entities with I-Net connections and told them that if the I-Net was not used for many years, they would have to be converted to fiber before they could be reactivated. e. PEGASYS' hours of operation during September 2020. Stefanelli is away Sept. 4- 17 but will come in once a week even during vacation so as to set up programming at the Nexus in City Hall. There will be no substitute staff during her absence. 07. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement: no report. DePaolo will try to reconnect with A. Lanham of Charter after speaking to City Attorney. 08. New Business a. DePaolo asks if AOC has questions for Montesano. How about getting the PEG channels onto the Spectrum App? Montesano: I'd love to answer; I'll ask Government Affairs. Browne: Why is PEG programming not included in newspaper TV-program listings? Montesano doesn't know where papers get their info. Stefanelli: long ago it was in newspapers. Montesano: I don't know who the 3rd-party vendor of this info is. DePaolo asks Montesano for a list of PEG studios and their production capacities. Van Leuken: Charter doesn't now list Ithaca PEG facilities on the Charter website. It used to. (Stefanelli doesn't recall this.) Van Leuken still recommends a mention of PEG on the site. 4 b. Tsegaye thanks Stefanelli for cablecasting his old-format documentaries. He has heard favorable comments on them. 09. Next meeting: 5 pm Tuesday, Oct. 6 (Zoom) unless we need to meet earlier to discuss reopening. 10. Adjournment 6:20. ================ Authority: City of Ithaca code Chapter 18, "Cable Access Oversight Committee". Adopted by the Common Council of the City of Ithaca 11-5-2003 by Ord. No. 2003-17. Available at https://ecode360.com/8386207. Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>. City of Ithaca: Rob Gearhart, Common Council liaison 2019- <rgearhart@cityofithaca.org>. City of Ithaca: member Gossa Tsegaye <gossavision@twcny.rr.com>, <tsegaye@ithaca.edu>. 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 Community Media Center 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