Urbana Public Television Commission Meeting

URBANA PUBLIC TELEVISION COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Date: March 14, 2014, 12:00pm Place: Urbana City Council Chambers 400 S. Vine Street, Urbana, IL Members Present: Peter Folk; Marie Polk; Chris Fuller; Dale Sinder; Carol Inskeep Members Absent: Dana Mancuso Staff Present: Jason Liggett; Jake Schumacher I. CALL TO ORDER Chair Folk called meeting to order at 12:07pm. II. ROLL CALL Attendance was noted. Dana Mancuso had notified staff she would not be able to make the meeting. III. MODIFICATIONS TO AND APPROVAL OF AGENDA Joanna Geigner’s presentation was moved forward in the agenda to better accommodate her schedule. IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes of the December 13, 2013 meeting were unanimously approved. V. CORRESPONDENCE An Urbana resident contacted both staff and Chair Folk with a complaint about a locally-produced show that was in her opinion objectionable. The resident requested the show be removed. Staff viewed the program and verified that the material was not obscene and did not violate any FCC or UPTV policies. Chair Folk viewed the show and concluded that while it was indeed quite objectionable, he had learned that this show reprised an Eddie Murphy stand-up routine from the 1980s. As a result the show will not be removed; however, Chair Folk gave suggestions to the complaining viewer of ways she could counter-balance the content she felt objectionable by producing a program of her own. Jake also invited the resident to the commission meeting today. Any question or complaints are always welcome to be brought to the attention of UPTV. Jake was requested by Mayor Prussing and Sanford Hess to ascertain the number of PEG stations in the country, and according to the article “How many Public Access stations are in Page 1 of 6  the Country?” the most recent count was 28 PEG stations in Illinois and over 1,800 nationally. The two organizations that serve PEG stations were discussed: NATOA, which has more to do with government access, much like Champaign’s station, and the Alliance for Community Media, which deals more with public access stations. UPTV is about to renew its membership in the ACM, and in the Illinois chapter of NATOA but not the national organization, due to costs. VI. STAFF REPORT Jason is running cameras for this meeting today and also participating as a disembodied voice. The automation system will be rebooted immediately following the Commission meeting: there has been several failures in the past week and rebooting the system will hopefully help. Julia Jones was introduced as the new part-time Production Assistant and she also did the minutes from the previous meeting. Yosef Kash is a new UPTV intern; he attends Parkland College majoring in multi-media, and will put in roughly 10 hours a week at UPTV for the spring semester recording and editing some of our public access shows. New programs in the past quarter included: “The Travis Wayne Hurt Christmas Special”; a New Year’s Eve midnight countdown; several local music videos; the recording and broadcast of the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Countywide Celebration; and “Celebrating the Life of Nelson Mandela” a two hour local event. UPTV was the only station in town to air Edward Snowden’s interview by Deutsche Welle, done in a secret location, and aired it before it subsequently became national news. UPTV continued to broadcast volunteers’ recordings of the weekly University YMCA Friday Forums and the monthly League of Women Voters presentations. UPTV also aired two one-hour live editions of “The Show” with Ray Morales. UPTV added the Urbana Tree Commission to the live and repeat broadcast schedule. This broadcast was the culmination of a gratifying series of events concerning the issue of the giant old hackberry tree, involving the Prairie Monk’s program on the topic which aired on UPTV as well as WEFT, and subsequent reactions from local citizen activists and some council members. The public interest in the topic led to the Urbana Tree Commission requesting live broadcast. Jason ultimately produced a feature piece when the hackberry was taken down. This was a great example of how UPTV helps enhance the civic health of our community. Page 2 of 6 UPTV was happy to add live “current Urbana weather conditions” to the broadcast schedule on a regular basis 24 hours a day. Jake thanked Commissioner Sinder for his initiative in providing the weather feed. UPTV continues to partner with more local radio stations. In the last quarter UPTV added WPGU’s “Illini Drive”, an hour long sports talk show, filmed live in the PGU studios and aired on UPTV Wednesday evenings at 9:00pm. UPTV also added WBCP-AM’s “Talking Sports,” a two hour radio program, which UPTV will film live at the BCP studios on Fridays and air on Saturday mornings from 7:00am-9:00am. The program is hosted by Joe Stovall, the News-Gazette’s Marcus Jackson, and WBCP’s Sarge. UPTV is happy to welcome Joe Stovall back to the station, as he had originally begun “Tell It Like It Tis” on UPTV years ago. Jason has produced programs featuring school mentors, and continues to work with and train Urbana High students. UHS basketball broadcasts have just concluded, and baseball broadcasts will be starting in April. Jason and the UHS Journalism class were invited by IHSA.tv to cover and stream Super Sectionals games. Jake and Jason also met with Urbana Middle School staff to make plans for a UMS student cooking program. JoAnne Geigner was present to talk more about the program later. Jake and Jason continue to attend the City of Urbana Communications and Outreach Group and also the Community Marketing and Communications Group. As of this morning UPTV’s Twitter account is at 1,054 tweets and 286 followers, and UPTV’s Facebook page had 85 people engaged and 1,412 total reached. UPTV may be able to run ads before movies at the Art Theater, with the help of Natalie KennyMarquez, to promote things like our local cinema show and classic movie broadcasts. The local CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, NM credited UPTV for running clips from a forum on the Champaign County Jail recorded and aired last April. They called needing footage because they are now using the same consulting service as Champaign County. WDWS also credited UPTV for their use of audio taken from Jason’s hackberry tree piece. Jake plans to attend the upcoming national Alliance for Community Media conference in August in Philadelphia. The event involves three days of panels, plenary sessions, workshops, skillshares, design jams, networking, and facility tours. The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) will hold its conference concurrently. Jason will be attending The Alliance for Community Media Midwest Regional Conference in April in Madison, WI. In addition to Page 3 of 6  attending, he will also be doing a presentation on the care and feeding of volunteers, and accepting a number of awards just announced for UPTV. UPTV received two merit awards, one for our website urbanatelevision.org, and one for UPTV’s Facebook page. UPTV also submitted three programs, and all won awards: UPTV received the Significant Community Program Award for member Ricardo Diaz’s C-U Immigration Forum TV, an Achievement Award for Marie Polk’s coverage of the Champaign County Freedom Celebration Parade, and the Excellence Award Best in Show for member Ray Morales’ Chi City Youth performance spoken word piece (which was funded in part by a City of Urbana arts grant). UPTV was bestowed another honor recently after partnering with the Lierman Neighborhood Community Garden (a community project started in 2012), Council members Dennis Roberts and Diane Marlin, and community leaders Robin Arbiter and Lizzie Duckworth- Carter. Lizzie produced a song and created a dance with the members of the community and Jason recorded the event and produced a music video of it. This video has been noticed on a national level: the Let’s Make a Move campaign, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, recognized the film, and it was forwarded straight to the White House. In response to the staff report for the quarter, Chair Folk expressed appreciation for the developments and recognized both new and existing staff for a job well done. A clips reel was played for the Commission. VII. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION JoAnne Geigner, a communication specialist at Urbana School District 116, proposes that UPTV film a cooking show. Barbie Price, an UMS Family and Consumer Science teacher, is to host the cooking class with UMS students. Dr. Don Owen, Urbana District 116 Superintendent, and UMS Principal Scott Woods will also be helpers during cooking demonstrations. The show will be aimed at students and families, focusing on creating healthy, easy, and affordable meals, while providing family interaction. It will also help students with planning, budgeting, sanitation and food safety, math, and science. There will be step by step instructions and recipes for the entire community to enjoy, and the show will provide a chance for family, students, and the community to interact with each other. This event will also implement community partnerships. Price and Geigner are in the process of finding grants to help with funding, and also finding local food vendors to help with food donations. Commissioner Fuller asked if they anticipated utilizing the Urbana Farmer’s Market, and the answer was yes, whether strictly as a food vendor or as a location for taking the show “on the road.” Jake added he is excited about this idea: cooking shows are always popular Page 4 of 6  with viewers, and it would add to the variety of school programs UPTV airs. Carol McKusick, 1907 N Cunningham Ave, addressed the commission wanting to know about the Open Meeting Act. Carol briefly read from the Freedom of Information Act. Do the meetings and minutes have to be saved forever? Are the records and minutes of the meetings available for public view after the meetings? What about the records that is no longer online? Before the questions could be answered Ms. McKusick requested more time to address the commission on another question. Chair Folk stated the commission would like to address the first questions and then give about 30 seconds for McKusick to ask her other question. Chair Folk stated a provision of the Open Meeting Act is that a public body has to provide a list of what records exist, and in the case of digital records, what form they are, to facilitate people knowing what they can request. Chair Folk asked staff where that list is and to what extent is that list up to date. Jake replied that a list is made available upon request, and that no request had ever been made. Online access to meetings is dictated by the amount of server space that the city can afford. UPTV maintains a library of the meetings it has aired and recorded on dvd, however Jake was not sure about the rest of the city departments. This is a question for the City Clerk, who handles all FOIA requests for any meetings or commissions. McKusick asked if the UPTV policies specified who has the authority to call meetings. Chair Folk responded with information about the 48 hour advance notice given by postings on the front door, in the newspaper, and on the city’s website. If a regular meeting is cancelled, the cancellation will also be posted at least 48 hours in advance, as well as a meeting that has been rescheduled. There are multiple ways to keep track of meetings on the city’s website. Jake commented that to the best of his knowledge it has never been the practice of UPTV to post meeting notices in the newspaper, nor do any of the other City of Urbana Commissions, except in special cases of public hearings. Chair Folk stated in response to a further question by Ms. McKusick that as Chair, he can call special meetings, and any commission member can request a special meeting, and noted there hasn’t been much need for special meetings in the case of UPTV. VIII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Policies and Procedures revisions are on hold. There have been a number of discussions since Sanford Hess took over IT concerning such things as staffing levels and access fees. At the moment it Page 5 of 6  is not feasible to undertake further revision on documents until Jake knows more about what actions are being taken. Jake found out this past week that it appears everything will be status quo for the fiscal year. Once that is certain, Jake can proceed with the revisions. UPTV is also considering a change in duplication fees, to make sure they reflect the actual cost of duplication. When all the information is in place and the document is done, it will be forwarded to everyone individually and will be run by legal one more time. UPTV moves from the Finance to the Executive division in July, which also complicates the process. Chair Folk asked how many member meetings are held each year. Currently it is just the annual meeting in December. (Ideally, if staff time allowed it would be nice to have one every month.) Members and the general public have a chance to discuss any policy changes at the annual meeting and at every UPTV Commission meeting. Any changes would also be made available on the UPTV website, urbanapublictelevision.org. IX. NEW BUSINESS A. Equipment Purchase None in this quarter; however, there will be a big purchase next quarter, a new video toaster for airing live shows. The current equipment failed but Jason has been working around the problems until a new one can be installed. Total cost for the new system is estimated at $16,000. The current system was scheduled for replacement after 8 years but UPTV was able to get an extra two years out of it. X. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Chair Folk asked if there were any developments in regards to those who are not cable subscribers to keep up to date on shows. No, but shows are streamed live and can be viewed on demand on YouTube at any time. The link for YouTube is also available on UPTV’s website. Chair Folk asked what percentage of shows end up on YouTube, and staff estimated 50% to 70%. Some programs not produced at or by UPTV are not available there. X. SET THE NEXT MEETING DATE AND ADJOURNMENT The next meeting was announced for June 13, 2014 at 12 noon in the Urbana City Council Chambers. The meeting was adjourned by unanimous vote. Minutes by Julia Jones. Page 6 of 6