TC 11-03-93CABLE TELEVISION ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Regular Meeting
Nov. 3, 1993
MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:16 p.m. by chairman Mike Wincn.
ROLL CALL
Present: Wincn, Len Batchelor, Jane Chiavacci (arrived 7:16 p.m.), Laird Huntsman
(arrived 7:22 p.m.)
Absent: Carol Marble
Staff: Donna Krey, Laura Newman
De Anza College: Pon Fish
TCI Staff: Daryl Henderson
Guests: Sam MacNeal, Linda Grodt
APPROVAL OF OCTOBER 6, 1993 MINUTES
The minutes of the Oct. 6, 1993 meeting were approved with one correction. Wincn said
the sentence "Wincn said he would bring a log of signal outages" should be added to the second
paragraph on page 2. Batchelor moved that the minutes be accepted as corrected; Chiavacci
seconded. The motion was passed unanimously.
COMMUNICATIONS
Oral: Linda Grodt, producer, announced that the Milpitas public access channel will be
showing her "Silicon Kids" program on a regular basis.
She also said that two of her shows were finalists for WAVE (Western Access Video
Excellence) awards, one of which won first place.
Written: Sam MacNeal, a resident, spoke about the letter he sent to the Committee. He
wanted to know what the committee would do as follow-up. Wincn said this information will be
brought to the negotiations. MacNeal's concern was whether TCI was complying with FCC
regulations in counting its "barker" channel among its basic service offerings.
Chiavacci asked what the next step would be in responding to Mr. MacNeal's concerns.
Krey told her that TCI needs to submit its FCC form which justifies the rates that they are
charging. Because the city of Cupertino is certified, TCI must do this by November 15. The city
will receive the form and analyze the data. At that time the city can ask TCI how much profit it
gets from this particular channel. Krey suggested it might be possible to have MacNeal sit in on
the meeting with TCI when this subject is brought up. Krey said this issue will be brought up
when the city actually takes a look at the forms that TCI submits.
Page 2
OLD BUSINESS
Status of re-franchising effort: Huntsman informed the committee of the status of the
re-franchising meetings. Krey said a technical committee was set up within the negotiating panel
comprised of Huntsman, Bill Levan from De Anza College and Dave Carlson, the new TCI
engineer. She said they are also waiting to find out what will happen at the next meeting of the
educators regarding INET, which is scheduled for Nov. 22. It was decided to hold the next
negotiating meeting until after the educators met. The educators are to put together a "wish" list
and specific goals that they would like to see accomplished.
NEW BUSINESS
City of Cupertino: Krey told the committee about the recent city council election. The
two incumbents in the race had a 20-vote difference. The Registrar of Voters was to let the city
know the next day what the final outcome is. She also informed the committee that the city
became officially certified Oct. 13. When the documentation was received from TCI, any two
members could sit down and go over the benchmark formula. Batchelor and Wincn expressed
interest in participating in this process.
Krey informed the committee that she submitted the committee's report to the city council
at their last meeting. Councilmember Goldman said it was a good report and expressed
appreciation that the committee got the report to them so quickly.
De Anza College: Fish reported that the video toaster has been installed in the studio and
has been used a few times and there has been definite technical improvement. He stated he
recently hired a student employee to assist with publicity for the access channel. The new news
show will be one of the projects to be advertised. It was suggested that copies of the program
schedule be placed in City Hall, the library and other areas throughout the city.
TCI: Wincn gave Henderson a copy of his signal quality log for October and asked that
he forward it to Chris Hernandez. Copies of Henderson's report were distributed. He told the
committee one item had been added under the "Basic Service" column and that was DMX, which
stands for "Digital Music Express" and is a 30-channel compact disc quality music system that
connects to a stereo. There were 4,000 less phone calls during October than in September due to
the re-regulation laws, which allowed TCI to meet the requirements of answering 90% of calls
within 30 seconds. They also met the abandonment rate goal of 1.8. (The FCC requirement is
3). CableCom started construction on the I-NET sites and should be completed by the end of the
week.
Henderson told the committee that 105 homes will be connected to cable at the
Countrywood Townhome site. TCI is paying for the construction due to the density of the
project as well as the interest. Huntsman asked that the agenda for next month include an item
for the review of the TCI policy for hooking up multi-family dwellings. He wanted to research
the information for possible inclusion in the negotiations of the franchise.
Page 3
I-NET/Educational Effort: Marble was absent and unable to give a report. Krey did
report that there is an Educator's meeting scheduled for November 22. Chiavacci expressed her
concern about the wiring project at the various school sites and wanted to know if it would be
possible for her to attend the Nov. 22 meeting. Krey said any committee member could attend
and she would find out the proper procedure for noticing the meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Chiavacci made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:29 p.m.; Huntsman seconded and
the motion passed unanimously. The committee will meet next on November 22 at the Cable-
Educators meeting.
ATTEST:
APPROVED:
City Clerk