Urbana Public Television Commission Meeting

URBANA PUBLIC TELEVISION COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES DATE: September 13, 2013 12:00 p.m. PLACE: Urbana City Council Chambers 400 S. Vine Street, Urbana, IL MEMBERS PRESENT: Peter Folk Marie Polk Chris Fuller Dale Sinder Dana Mancuso Carol Inskeep STAFF PRESENT: Jason Liggett Jake Schumacher I. CALL TO ORDER Chair Folk called the meeting to order at 12:05 p.m. II. ROLL CALL Attendance was noted. III. MODIFICATIONS TO AND APPROVAL OF AGENDA Jake noted that the unfinished business of Policies & Procedures revisions would be dealt with under “Staff Report.” IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes of the June 14, 2013 meeting were unanimously approved. V. CORRESPONDENCE There was no correspondence addressed to the Commission since the previous meeting. VI. STAFF REPORT Due to the sudden departure of Bill DeJarnette, there has begun an ongoing restructuring of some of the city operations with which Bill was involved. UPTV has remained in the IT department, but that department has been moved from Finance to Executive. UPTV staff met with Mike Monson and Charlie Smythe to discuss space, staff and underwriting issues, and are waiting to hear back. Hires will need to be made and the situation stabilized before pursuing revisions to Section 9 of the City of Urbana Policy and Procedure Manual pertaining to UPTV policy and procedures. The city staff that had access to the additional financial information requested by Chair Folk concerning expenditures from the PEG fund are all gone, and those positions will also need to be filled and stabilized before those numbers can be researched. UPTV continues to participate in meetings and activities of the City’s Community Marketing and Communications group. Jake attended a teleconference arranged by the Alliance for Community Media concerning music copyright law. Staff will attend the UI Volunteer Fair again. Jason has completed the podcast modules for the walking tour of Urbana historic homes. Jason also worked with the Teens in Action summer camp and the UHS broadcast class, and is supervising the production of UHS sports event broadcasts. A grant from the Champaign- Urbana Area project to UPTV has provided a summer internship program for Ellis Woodland, which has enabled us to record and air a number of community events. Marie Polk and Jason headed up a team to produce the best Champaign County Freedom Celebration Fourth of July coverage yet. UPTV has also begun airing the Urbana Free Library Board meetings. Both of those presentations have engendered a great deal of community/viewer interest. UPTV recorded and is broadcasting almost the entire day of performances on the One Community Together stage at this year’s Sweetcorn Festival, as well as performances at the Champaign-Urbana Singer- Songwriter Festival. Also recorded and airing: the press conference presenting the new Urbana bicycle map; a feature on Public Works and their win at the statewide Snow Roadeo; and the event celebrating the first anniversary of the Lierman Neighborhood Community Garden. Volunteer producer Dr. Zachariah has requested a 4:30am slot each weekday for his series “Breaking News in Wellness and Health” so that it can be easily viewed on the web in India in the afternoon (local time) for medical training purposes there. The daily news program “Democracy Now!” now repeats weekdays at 5 pm. We continue to record and air the YMCA Friday Forum lectures, League of Women Voters presentations, and various programs produced on our local community radio stations. Other volunteer producers were mentioned and thanked. Jason did a presentation on some of the new features on the UPTV website. We have now broken the 200 mark with Twitter followers, and have 390+ likes on Facebook. CU: Sharing the Road is our most popular on-demand video on our YouTube channel, with well over 2,000 views. Safe Roads to School and WEFT Sessions are also among the more popular programs. The June 17th City Council meeting was UPTV’s most popular live-streamed program, with as many as 48 simultaneous viewers. Chair Folk asked whether there were plans to host community-access programs on UPTV’s website. That was the original idea and remains a goal, but UPTV does not currently have sufficient staff time to make that happen. A short clips reel was played for the Commission. VII. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION Urbana resident Carol McKusick addressed the Commission about: the logistics of the recording of meetings in the Executive Conference Room; which part of the City Code governs UPTV; the make-up of the UPTV Commission, and the procedure for applying to be a UPTV Commission; the publication of meeting agendas for Commissions; and how quorums are figured for meetings. Jake corrected his previous use of “Code” when he intended “Policy and Procedure Manual,” and said he would pursue the addition of specific constituencies and term lengths to the listing of UPTV Commissioners on the city website. Commissioner Sinder suggested the addition of information concerning open seats on the Commission and perhaps a link to an application form. VIII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS IX. NEW BUSINESS A. Equipment Purchases Among purchases this quarter were an additional hard-drive camera, cables with signal-boosters, DVD supplies, and new headsets for the high school sports broadcasts. B. Annual Membership Meeting and Holiday Open House Our annual get-together will be Saturday, December 7th, from noon to 1 pm, in the City Council Chambers. X. COMMISSIONERS’ COMMENTS Commissioner Polk will be in Hawaii on December 7 and unable to make the event. Condolences were offered. XI. SET THE NEXT MEETING DATE AND ADJOURNMENT The next regular meeting was announced for Friday, Dec 13, 2013 at 12 noon in the Urbana City Council Chambers. The meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent at 12:48 pm.