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TC 01-05-94Cable Television Advisory Committee Regular Meeting Jan. 5, 1994 MINUTES CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by chairman Mike Wincn. ROLL CALL: Present: Wincn, Len Batchelor, Laird Huntsman, Carol Marble, Jane Chiavacci Staff: Donna Krey, Laura Newman TCI Staff: Chris Hemandez, Rebecca Haugh, De Anza College: Ron Fish Guests: Linda Grodt; Don Yeager, Kimberley Lawrence APPROVAL OF DECEMBER 1, 1993 MINUTES Carol Marble made a motion to approve the minutes as written; Laird Huntsman seconded and the motion passed unanimously. COMMUNICATIONS: Oral: Jane Chiavacci questioned the role of local television in case of a natural disaster in Cupertino. She has a neighbor who has expressed concern about what to do and where to get information during an emergency. Krey informed Chiavacci that the City of Cupertino has an emergency preparedness plan which is required by the state. Also, there is an emergency override system which allows the city manager to call a special phone number and override the entire TCI cable system in order to broadcast any information pertaining to the emergency. Chiavacci thanked Krey for that infom~ation and said she felt it was necessary for the committee to discuss the role of local television during an emergency. This will placed on the agenda for next month. Written: Wincn distributed a draft copy of a letter to TCI regarding the 24-hour outage that occurred on the Education Channel at De Anza College and signal drop-out of the Government Channel and residential service. Chiavacci made a motion to accept the letter with the corrections suggested by Krey; Marble seconded and the motion passed unanimously. OLD BUSINESS Status of re-franchising effort: Krey reported that the next meeting was scheduled for the day following the CTVAC meeting. She said progress is being made on the technical side. Demands have been made to fix the technical problems under the current franchise agreement. Bill Levan from De Anza College has been conducting a series of tests which show that some of the channels are not in compliance with FCC minimum standards. Discussion of access tape policy - Ron Fish distributed copies of his Access Director's Report which contained a draft paragraph on a new access tape policy which would be an amendment to the Producer Agreement. Fish reminded the committee that the college bookstore manager will sell videotapes. He also has compiled a list of dealers from which the producers can purchase tapes. Page 2 The committee recommended that Fish discuss the proposed policy with the producers at their next meeting and report the results at the March meeting. NEW BUSINESS Discussion of topic for grants funding: Wincn reminded the committee that last year's topic for grants funding was handicapped, disabled and elderly people. He asked for ideas for a topic for this year. Krey said one topic discussed in the past was how to encourage new producers. Another was publicity-promoting the station more. Len Batchelor brought up the idea of environmental and energy savings ideas. He also talked about recycling and composting issues. The committee requested that Fish ask the producers for some ideas. The grants budget is $1,700. New grants application forms will be provided. Fish will try to schedule his meeting with the producers prior to the next committee meeting and provide feedback to the committee at its February meeting. No action will be taken on this item until the February meeting. Review of TCI Policy for hooking up multi-family dwellings: Huntsman had previously asked Daryl Henderson of TCI to inform the committee of what the policy is for hooking up multi-family dwellings. Chris Hemandez and Rebecca Haugh of TCI explained how TCI makes a decision on hooking up multi-family dwellings. Hernandez said it is a procedure rather than a policy. Several interest calls from a complex are required before representatives from the sales office will respond. A cost analysis is performed in which TCI determines how long it would take to get back some of the initial cash outlay to install the cable. Sometimes that cost is share with the owners. Another part of the procedure is whether the complex in question wants to have a bulk rate, which means everyone in the dwelling gets cable or whether its part of their rental fee or homeowners fee. A contract between TCI and the owner of the building is executed. The committee accepted the explanation of TCI's procedure. TCI: Hemandez distributed the status report from TCI for the month of December 1993. Maintenance of I-NET has been taken over by the San Jose office. Previously, the Cupertino office was able to perform maintenance on I-NET, however, over the years the use has increased and demands for repairs have risen. Monta Vista High School is connected with the exception of one riser. Portal School is all ready except for getting a small piece of cable crossing the street. Homestead High School is all in. He is trying to coordinate with the maintenance people from the school and the contractor to determine the cable location at each site. Cupertino High School has been wired and is ready to go. A meeting between Foothill College, De Anza College and TCI has been proposed in order to discuss the best way to use the I-NET system. Chiavacci asked Hemandez whether TCI has been getting a lot of complaints about the remote control. She feels they are old-fashioned. Hernandez informed her that TCI is continually buying new ones and old ones can be turned in for a new one. I-NET/Educational effort: Marble reported the schools were in the process of submitting their equipment and personnel requests for TCI franchise negotiations. She thanked Hemandez for his efforts in performing the hook-ups at all the schools. She wanted him to be sure and communicate with Doug Fowler at the Cupertino Union School District and Karen Burnett at the Fremont Union High School District during the final stages of hook-up of I-NET. Page 3 City of Cupertino: Krey reported that an Educational Task Force has been set up which consists of representatives from the elementary, high school and De Anza College. They will be meeting with representatives from Pacific Bell to discuss areas of common interests in the cable industry. Also, she stated that a united effort among the cities is underway to ensure collection of a franchise fee or other fee from the telephone companies once they begin offering cable programming. The phone companies have said they do not want to pay cities franchise fees for supplying cable programming and this may lead to current cable companies protesting their payment of franchise fees to cities. Cities are encouraged to write letters to legislators asking for support in maintaining the current payment of franchise fees. The City Channel will be off the air for the first week of February due to the addition of a new switcher which will require re-wiring. Currently, Kellyn Yamada is working with the Historical Society Museum Director on an oral history of pioneer families in Cupertino. TCI provided its 393 forms to the city for review. These are FCC forms used by cable companies to justify the rates being charged for basic cable. One problem which was discovered during the review of these forms was that TCI had lumped together the cities of San Jose, Los Altos and Cupertino. The city has requested that Cupertino be separated from the other two cities and a meeting will probably be set up with TCI for further explanation as to how they arrived at their current figures. The city will also request a 90-day extension in order to go over the forms more closely. She informed the committee that there were three applicants for Len Batchelor's vacant seat. Len chose not to reapply for his seat but will be available as a resource. The committee presented him with a card and gift in parting. De Anza College: Ron Fish informed the committee that there is now a permanent producer for the access news show. He said this month's news show was going to be entered in the access category for the upcoming BACE Awards. He is going to encourage all producers to submit an entry for the BACE Awards. Equipment has been ordered for Edit Suite A and installation should be completed by the end of the month. Krey asked for an inventory of the new equipment in order to issue asset tags from the city. He also told the committee that the access channel is running a new TCI show called "TCI This Week." The committee requested he provide a copy of the program for them to review. The general feeling of the committee was that this program could potentially be promotional for TCI and may not be appropriate on the public access channel. Election of New Officers: Committee members discussed several options for the roles of chair and vice chair. Batchelor made a motion to nominate Chiavacci as Chairman. Wincn seconded. Chiavacci declined the nomination due to a stressful and busy workload. Batchelor withdrew his nomination. Chiavacci made a motion to nominate Laird Huntsman as chairman; Marble seconded and the motion passed unanimously. Wincn made a motion to nominate Marble as vice-chair, Huntsman seconded and the motion passed unanimously. ADJOURNMENT Batchelor made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:50 p.m.; Marble seconded and the motion passed unanimously. The committee will meet next on February 2. ATTEST: City Clerk APPROVED: Chairperson/