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TC 04-02-97 Telecommunications Commission Regular Meeting April 2, 1997 MINUTES CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chairman Ernest Tsui at 7:00 p.m. ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Sal Algeri, Bill Marmion, Ernest Tsui, Mike Winch Absent: L.T. G-uttadauro Staff: Donna Krey De Anza College: Rea Fish Guests: Harvey Barnett, Cupertino Union School District and Linda Grodt APPROVAL OF MAR. 5, 1997 MINUTES Sai Algeri made a motion to approve the minutes as written; Bill Mannion seconded and the motion passed unanimously. COMMUNICATIONS Oral: There was none. - Written: Krey gave Winch a copy of the producer agreement to give to the director of the Los Altos cable channel. She also passed out a clipping regarding TCI's rate hikes in June. NEW BUSINESS Mid-Year Report From Cupertino Union School District on educational grants by Harvey Barnett: This item was taken out of order. Barnett presented two status reports to the commission, one from Kennedy Junior High School and one from Stevens Creek Elementary School. Both of those schools received educational grant funding through the district, with money made available by the commission. The reports stated that Stevens Creek has implemented a video studio this year and students have produced a weekly TV show since October. They've also started teleclasses. There is a weekly video technology class at Stevens Creek School, set up to help students use the cameras and editing equipment. The school has also ordered a Macintosh video editing edition and cinema package. Both Stevens Creek and Kennedy were awarded $4,500 in grant money. The other $1,000 went to Fremont Union High School District for the educational channel and Barnett anticipates continuing support between those two districts. A written report from Kennedy Junior High stated that the school has three goals which will be furthered by the video grant. Those goals include giving students practical experiences with video media, increasing the knowledge and interaction levels between school and the community, and giving students a strong sense of connection between each other and the school as a whole. There is a plan to purchase a high-quality video camera and two additional hand-held cameras at Kennedy. Barnett showed the commission two videotapes, one from each school, and those videotapes featured special programs that the students had produced. He said that eventually they would like to have some of - those shows running on the public access channel, and right now, the roadblocks for that happening include getting parent permission for the youngsters who are showcased in the videos. Also, Barnett said that some of the students' humor might be a little questionable and students also have a tendency to use copyrighted music, which would not be permitted on a community access channel. Currently the videotapes are shown on a closed-circuit system just to the schools and to the students. Mannion suggested that when the students come up with programming that is appropriate for the community access channel, it would be nice to recognize those students and give them as much '- support as possible. Barnett thanked the commission for making the grants available. He said that often video is overlooked in the schools and the big news is Interact, but all of the schools in the Cupertino Union School District are wired for cable and data and they do have the capability for a closed-circuit system. He said that they would continue to seek grants from the commission in order to expand the program in the schools with more equipment and teacher support. Tsui told Barnett that the telecommunications commission is interested in sponsoring programs that students might be interested in producing, especially programs that touch on the topics of public safety and cultural diversity. He said that there are several public safety issues, including traffic around Kennedy Junior High school, that may be of interest to some of the students. Barnett said that the district does have a diversity action plan which tries to help students see diversity through instruction and mentioned that this topic could be a subject for a student videotape. The commission thanked Barnett for providing the report. OLD BUSINESS 1997 Project Timeline: Winch reviewed the project timeline with commissioners. He indicated that producer meetings were scheduled each month and asked Fish to come up with solid dates for those. He said he will add to the timeline a maintenance report in the month of June. Commissioners with other solid dates for projects and activities should contact Wincn so that he can plug those into the timeline. Telecommunication liaison with other cities: Winch produced a list of cities and contacts in the telecommunications field in three counties. He said he would notify those people on his list and let them know what the Cupertino Telecommunications Commission was doing. Krey asked if he intended to contact city administrators or just telecommunications commissions. She said the Cupertino board's goal was to work with commissioners in surrounding cities and suggested that Winch start with Los Altos. She said she would provide additional information about local telecommunication commissions that were not on the list. Promotion/awareness of access channel: Algeri mentioned a few ideas that he had to help promote Channel 26. He suggested the program guide be more available throughout the community. Also, there should be electronic information placed on the web and notices in the Cupertino Scene on where to pick up the program guides. He said that the access channel may also be promoted through a poster or a slogan contest, and he said he would like to begin the promotional campaign by receiving as much input as possible, and then developing a plan and finally implementing that plan. Krey suggested that a good portion of one meeting should be devoted to one or two of the commission's goals to ensure that adequate discussion take place. Promotion and awareness of the access channel might make a good topic for one of the upcoming meetings, she said. Production of videotapes: Mannion informed the commission that on the topic of stewardship The Better Part had followed up the city's cultural richness training with interviews of the Public Dialogue Consortium people and Michael Chang and the tape was available to be viewed. Tsui talked about the public safety videotape telling commissioners that he had brought the subject up with the chairman of the Public Safety Commission, and that commission will also discuss the idea. On the topic of a local news videotape, Mannion suggested the Cupertino Courier editor might be involved in something like that. Fish suggested the college's newspaper La Voz, which is now producing news of De Aziza, may also be interested in producing a community news program, and the commission discussed how to get crews together to do that type of programming. Fish said he would speak to the people at the college. Krey also said that the grants campaign could focus on specific ideas for programs that access producers could supply. Commissioners will make a constructive effort to get volunteers together who might be interested in producing some of those types of programs. Community education event: Winch suggested that the commission would probably not have time to develop a full-blown community education event on the scale of this year's. Krey agreed and said she would continue to put in articles each month in the Cupertino Scene and that the commissioners might want to focus on the new special award for an access producer program and let the community education event ride for awhile. Special award for access producer: Mannion said he was interested in getting student work recognized and perhaps working with Fish on coming up with potential candidates for the award. Krey suggested that there was a need for criteria and Mannion and Algeri agreed to work together to develop a list of criteria for the award by the next meeting. The commissioners agreed at the next meeting to focus on three of the goals and specifically use those as main topics of discussion. Those are promotion and awareness, public safety and the special award for the access producer. Those will be italicized on the agenda so that people know they will be the main topics of conversation. Report from TCI: There was none. City of Cupertino: Krey informed the commission about the 1997 CREST Awards and invited everyone to attend on May 15. She also told commissioners that she and Wincn were in the process of reviewing TCI's 1240 forms, which propose a rate increase June 1. Krey also told commissioners that the contract with De AnTs College was still in the college's hand and the city was waiting for a Fmai draft. Algeri reported on the Mayor's breakfast and said that Mayor Bautista described the city's diversity training and told those in attendance that the process would continue. He also talked about the city encouraging Apple Computer to bring a sales office to Cupertino. Winch will attend the next Mayor's breakfast. De Anza College: Fish said that he has not been accepting any new producers because of the lack of funding. He said that more than half of the current producers have completed and signed the new producer agreement, and he told commissioners that he has ordered a new screen to go over the light that was mentioned at the last meeting. He's also updated ail of the slides on Channel 26. He said he's been spending a lot of time on maintenance during the final's break because there is not much engineering support. He told commissioners that Gordon Horn, .the TV director for the educational channel, is no longer with the college, and he said that the emergency lights have been repaired and all emergency lights are installed in Studio A. Bill Mannion mentioned The Better Part's celebration on April 18. ADJOURNMENT Winch made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:00 p.m.; Mannion seconded and the motion passed unanimously. The next regular meeting will be held May 7 at 7 p.m. ATTEST:clerk~~ ~ APPROVED:~ City ~ Chaiq~erson