Urbana Cable and Telecommunications Commission Meeting

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION REGULAR QUARTERLY MEETING MINUTES DATE: July 18, 2012, 4:00 p.m. PLACE: Urbana Council Chambers, 400 South Vine St., Urbana, Illinois MEMBERS PRESENT: CHAMPAIGN URBANA Rick Atterberry Peter Folk Karen Walker PARKLAND U of I -- Chris Lukeman MEMBERS ABSENT: Giraldo Rosales, Dale Sinder, Chris Foster STAFF PRESENT: Jeff Hamilton – City of Champaign Jake Schumacher – City of Urbana 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Atterberry called the meeting to order at 4:04 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Attendance was noted. 3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA The agenda was approved as presented. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Jeff Hamilton asked that the minutes of the 1/18/12 meeting be amended to reflect that Commissioner Harrison was absent and that item A under Old Business was tabled. The minutes of the 1/18/12 (as amended) and 4/18/12 meetings were approved. 5. CORRESPONDENCE Jake Schumacher stated an email for the Commission was in the packet. Mr. Hamilton reviewed Champaign cable complaints for the quarter. Commissioner Folk noted that one complaint concerned Comcast’s digital conversion and requirement of a box on every TV. The Commission expressed disappointment regarding the need for the Comcast DTAs and their limited functionality. 6. OLD BUSINESS A. Amendment of Commission Rules & Regulations Mr. Schumacher said the Commission’s Rules and Regulations need to be revised to reflect recent changes (i.e. Urbana now clerks for the Commission). He also noted that the requirement 1 for seven Commissioners to meet and approve changes has not been possible due to attendance. He suggested the Commission may wish to re-envision their purpose and rewrite the entire document. Then staff would figure out how to get it approved and in place. Commissioner Lukeman asked how many parts of the document need to be changed. Chair Atterberry answered that several changes are needed on each page. He said this is an interesting time to reconsider the Commission’s purpose. All seven Commissioners will need to attend to make a change. Commissioner Folk asked if the Commission could meet electronically. Mr. Hamilton responded that members have attended electronically in the past; so long as the public can attend and participate. Commissioner Folk proposed that the Commission could hold a special meeting so that the seven member requirement can be changed to a simple majority. Mr. Schumacher suggested this could also happen at a regular meeting. Mr. Hamilton suggested the Commission start revising the document now and present it to the entire Commission for adoption whenever all seven members are present. Commissioner Folk moved that a three member subcommittee be established to begin redrafting the Commission’s Rules and Regulations. Motion approved unanimously. Chair Atterberry will contact the members absent from today’s meeting to gauge their interest in serving on the subcommittee. B. Council Seats on Commission Chair Atterberry stated that City Code requires a Council representative from both Cities be appointed to the Commission, but that currently there aren’t any. He questioned if this is good use of a City Council Member’s time and pointed out it has been difficult for them to attend Commission meetings in the past. Mr. Hamilton explained that when Council Member/Commissioner Harrison resigned recently, there was staff discussion about who might replace him on the Commission. The Administration concluded that a Council Member may no longer be needed on the Commission. Champaign’s Mayor was consulted and is supportive of eliminating the Council representative to the Commission. Champaign staff is checking with Urbana staff on their thoughts on this change. It would ultimately require Council action to remove this requirement from both City Codes. Chair Atterberry stated that he is willing to discuss this with Mayor Prussing to see what Urbana thinks of this change. Commissioner Folk said he would like to maintain a connection to the Councils and suggested the Commission send an annual report to both Councils. Mr. Hamilton reported that Champaign already does an annual report to Council, with assistance from the Commission’s Chair. Commissioner Folk suggested that a similar report be sent to Urbana’s Council. He suggested the Commission write their own annual report to the Councils starting next year. All agreed. C. Online Certification 2 Chair Atterberry reminded the Commission that members have until the end of the calendar year to complete Open Meetings Act certification. Chair Atterberry and Commissioner Sinder have completed the training. Mr. Schumacher will send out the link and a reminder to the Commission prior to the next meeting. 7. REPORTS A. Committee Reports – None B. Annual PEG Reports UI-7 – Commissioner Lukeman reported there is lots of new student programming on UI-7. They also have a new website - publicaffairs.illinois.edu/UI7. They are switching to a new online streaming service soon and will cover more live events. Some great student-produced documentaries are also coming in. CGTV – Mr. Hamilton reported that new local programming was up this year. CGTV Online received almost 18,000 hits last year. The website was revamped last year to be more visually appealing. CGTV is now viewable on iPads/iPhones. An online video presence is more important than ever. Therefore CGTV will focus more on online resources and also launch a YouTube channel in the months ahead. UPTV – Mr. Schumacher announced that they recently launched their new website urbanapublictelevision.org and UPTV will start live streaming soon. UPTV staff has been very busy with local productions and working with public access users. They recently lost University of California Television programming which led to an increase in bulletin board hours in March. A dedicated team produced coverage of the Freedom Celebration parade this year. Commissioner Folk noted that all together the four PEG channels produced 1800 hours of local programming last year, which he thought was remarkable. PCTV - Chair Atterberry said that PCTV’s report is in the Commissioner’s packets, but that Commissioner Foster was unable to attend today’s meeting. 8. NEW BUSINESS A. Election of Officers Chair Atterberry asked for nominations for Chair. Commissioner Walker nominated Rick Atterberry. There were no other nominations. Approved unanimously. Chair Atterberry asked for Vice-Chair nominations. Commissioner Folk nominated himself. There were no other nominations. Approved unanimously. Chair Atterberry thanked Commissioner Walker for her past service as Vice-Chair. B. Setting of Annual Calendar of Meeting Dates 3 Mr. Schumacher stated that they are required to set and post the meeting dates on the website. He proposed the regular meetings be held the third Wednesdays of January, April, July and October at 4 p.m. He asked if the Commission wanted to officially cancel the Study Session meetings for the next year as well. Chair Atterberry agreed and said Study Sessions can be held as-needed. Commissioner Folk concurred. Chair Atterberry stated that any Commissioner is welcome to propose a study session at any time. Commissioner Walker moved to adopt the recommended meeting schedule. Approved unanimously. C. Future of CUcabletv.com Mr. Schumacher said the Commission’s website is lacking, non-functional, and can’t easily be edited. He recommended moving the important information to the Commission’s page on the City of Urbana’s website and eliminating the old site. Commissioner Folk voiced agreement but recommended redirecting the URL to the new page for at least a year. Mr. Schumacher agreed. Commissioner Lukeman said that search engine optimization might be hurt, but by being on a more popular site people will still find the information. Commissioner Walker agreed that keeping the CUcabletv.com URL is important. Mr. Schumacher will check with Urbana’s staff to make sure this can be done. Commissioners discussed that keeping the URL would be beneficial and is easier to remember. Commissioner Lukeman stated that the Commission’s Facebook page could also be updated. He is an Administrator of the page because it was originally established by his predecessor at UI-7. Mr. Schumacher and Commissioner Lukeman will discuss the situation with the Commission’s Facebook page. 9. AUDIENCE PARTICPATION - None 10. COMMISSIONER’S COMMENTS - None 11. SET NEXT MEETING DATE AND ADJOURNMENT Chair Atterberry stated that the Commission’s next meeting will be October 17th at 4 p.m. The meeting was adjourned at 4:50 pm. Respectfully submitted, Jeff Hamilton Telecommunications/AV Technician City of Champaign J:\IT\Cable Commission\Cable Minutes\2012\07-18-12 Minutes.doc 4