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TC 12-06-95 Cable Television Advisory Committee Regular Meeting D~cember 6, 1995 MINUTES CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by chairperson Mike Wincn. ROLL CALL: Present:, Donna Poggi, Paul Rodwick, Ernest Tsui, J.M. Winch Absent: Laird Huntsman Staff: Donna Krey De Anza College: Ron Fish Guests: Linda Orodt, Don Yaeger, Len Batchelor, Daniel Wade, Roger Magnaghi APPROVAL OF NOV. 1, 1995 MINUTES Paul Rodwick made a motion to approve the minutes as written; Donna Poggi seconded and the motion passed unanimously. COMMUNICATIONS Oral: Don Yaeger discussed the ongoing negotiations between the city of Sunnyvale and TCI _.. concerning TCI's ability to offer Cupertino public access programming in Sunnyvale. He described the negotiations as being very encouraging and said that TCI seems to want to provide the connections. Yaeger met with city officials yesterday and another meeting is scheduled next week. He believes that all that needs to be done is for TCI to identify what it will take technically to achieve this goal and also said that Sunnyvale officials believe an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) would be needed for all of the cities involved. He asked who should initiate that MOU. Krey responded that the MOU should come from the city of Sunnyvale since it is the primary agency working with TCI. Yaeger also mentioned that Able Cable was a finalist in another WAVE award category. Able Cable won an award in the special interest program category. They were also a finalist in the docu-drama category. Linda G-rodt said that public access was now appearing on the "A' side of the system. There was a problem when TCI rearranged some of its channels to accommodate "must-carry" rules for KCSM but all that has been cleared up. She thanked Krey for asking TCI to look into that. Grodt also asked the committee when the grant funding would be available for a grant that was approved for her access program. Krey said that the check had been mailed out by the city. OLD BUSINESS Update on TCI billing audit for county areas: Kathi Nee was not present at the meeting but Krey went over a report from TCI that had been foxed prior to the meeting. The report indicated that there was only one street that had been incorrectly coded as Santa Clara County, which was actually in the city of Cupertino. TCI found five affected customers on that street and they have since corrected their map to include that one street in the city of Cupertino. Kathi Noe's report also included ._ additional infom~ation regarding unplanned outages. This information is required now by the iYanchise agreement, and the report also stated that more infot-~.atiun would be coming on complaints received by the general manager and city complaints. Noe's report also ad&essed a concern posed by commissioner Rodwick regarding the preview guide channel and whether or not that could include some advertising for the public access channel as well as moving -- through the information at a faster pace. TCI's response is that the company is in the process of evaluating other on-screen program guides and testing those that will be interactive. TCI is going to look into newer versions that will allow the customer to type in a subject and the guide would then respond with all relevant programming. According to Noe's report, because of these impending changes, TCI does not anticipate modifying its current service but the company will keep in mind requests made by customers when they evaluate new service providers. NEW BUSINESS Use of grant funding for engineer position: Ron Fish explained to the committee that his current part- time engineer was looking for a way to become full-time and Fish wanted the committee's approval to use part of the funding that the city conlributes to the TV Center to augment the engineer's part-time salary into a full- time position. The money would be specifically earmarked for that effort and the college would fund the other half of the position as it does now. The commission agreed that there were no strings attached to the funding from the city and the college was able to spend the funding in whichever way it wanted to. The committee did not have an objection to Fish using a portion of the grant money for the professional services of a full-time engineer. Fish requested that a letter be sent to the college agreeing to the proposal and provided the name of the person to whom the letter should go. Krey agreed to write the letter and will make copies available to committee members at their next meeting. City of Cupertino: Krey updated the commission regarding the franchise negotiations with TCI saying that the city council had approved the agreement and that the city was now awaiting signatures from TCI. She also told commissioners that the 1996 commissioners dinner would be held on Feb. 2 and invited all current and .- outgoing commissioners to attend. In addition, she gave a brief update on Pac Bell negotiations and told the commissioners that Don Brown was again involved in the negotiations process and both the cities and Pac Bell were very hopeful of having an agreement shortly. At this point, a resident of the Monta Vista area, Roger Magnaghi, asked the committee members to take a look at some new technical equipment that a group of residents in his area are very excited about using. Krey explained that the commission is an advisory body to the city council, does not make endorsements for specific products, and only recommends to council on certain policy issues. Chairman Wincn suggested Mr. Magnaghi submit information about the product and the committee would take it up at their next meeting to see if it is of interest. Magnaghi agreed to drop information off at Krey's office for the next agenda. De Anza College: Fish told the committee that the remote studio has been tested and has worked out very well on four separate occasions. He said the college is producing a live microwave transmission from Vallco on Friday, Dec. 8, and invited commissioners to drop by and have a look at it. He has also installed some new equipment to replace older equipment and the college now has a new broadcast field camera and a new SVHS deck in the control room. Fish also talked about a producer's show called "National High" which is garnering much attention from many high schools around the country. TCI: Already reported. Mayor's Breakfast: There was no report on the mayor's breakfast. ADJOURNMENT Tsui made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:00 p.m.; Rodwick seconded and the motion passed unanimously. ~ ATTEST: APPROVED: City Clerk C