Urbana Public Television Commission Meeting

URBANA PUBLIC TELEVISION COMMISSION DATE: Friday, March 8, 2019 TIME: 12:00 P.M. PLACE: Urbana City Council Chambers, 400 S Vine St, Urbana, IL 61801 MINUTES Members Present: Peter Folk, Christopher Fuller, Mark Schultz, Dale Sinder, Members Absent: Marie Polk, Carol Inskeep Staff Present: Sanford Hess, Jason Liggett, Jake Schumacher 1. Call to Order & Roll Call & Declaration of Quorum Chair Folk called the meeting to order at 12:13 p.m. A quorum was present. 2. Approval of Minutes Commissioner Schultz moved to pass the September 28, 2018 minutes as drafted, seconded by Commissioner Fuller, passed by unanimous voice vote. 3. Correspondence The Commission received 3 pieces of correspondents since their last meeting. Commissioner Sinder moved to table discussion on the two emails from Durl Kruse and one email from Peter Folk until the topic of New Public Access Channel Timeline under New Business on the agenda, seconded by Commissioner Schultz, passed by unanimous voice vote. 4. Staff Report Jason reported the vacancy of two seats on the UPTV Commission. The City hired 3 new camera operators in October - Austen Pontious, Andrew Scolari and Kevin Lau. Jake Schumacher retired as UPTV Station Manager and is now serving in a part-time Program Coordinator role with the City. UPTV celebrated Community Media Day on October 20, 2018. Jason produced several new feature videos over the winter detailing how the Urbana Public Works Department handles winter weather events. Rev. Dr. Evelyn Underwood & Bishop King James Underwood welcomed three musical acts to On the Rock over the past several months. Special programs produced included The Travis Wayne Hurt Christmas Special and a fourth season of The Joey Wright Show. Urbana School District #116 Board of Education meeting broadcasts have continued to grow in popularity. The two most-watched videos on UPTV’s YouTube channel since the last UPTV Commission meeting were both Board of Education meetings. Reel Reviews: Rewind was featured in CU Blogfidential. The two most popular Facebook posts were a Facebook Live video of Candlestick Lane and a video of the Urbana Police Department’s  Shop with a Cop program. The two most popular tweets on Twitter were a video of the Attach Student Art Show and a video clip of the buzzer-beating shot, which won Urbana High School their first regional championship in basketball since 1989. The News-Gazette also featured our video of the game on their website. A UPTV Public Access Membership meeting was held on Saturday, February 23, 2019. The members brainstormed ideas on what they would like to see out of a media access center. UPTV t-shirts are now available for purchase at the UPTV office. 5. Audience Participation Karen DeBauche presented on the Dr. William P. Foster Project. The Urbana Band Program at Urbana Middle School was nationally recognized this year. 6. Unfinished Business There was no unfinished business. 7. New Business A. UPTV Policies and Procedures Jason presented the changes to the Policies and Procedures. The major changes were language changes in the disclaimer slides. These were discussed at the September 28, 2018 UPTV Commission meeting. The minor changes included replacing any reference of UPTV Production Coordinator to UPTV Station Manager. Other minor changes were the deletion of language about the Urbana Civic Center as a rental facility and updating the membership make- up of the UPTV Commission to current practices. It previously referenced the Cable Commission. Chair Folk amended a disclaimer to read UPTV hopes rather than UPTV hope. Commissioner Sinder moved to pass the revisions to the UPTV Policies and Procedures as amended, seconded by Commissioner Schultz, passed unanimously by voice vote. B. Equipment Purchases Jason reported $985.88 in equipment purchases this quarter, which brings the total amount, spent in fiscal year 2019 to $2242.83. The equipment purchased this quarter was mainly Council Chamber upgrades. C. Budget Update Jason presented the UPTV Budget Summary included in the packet. He noted UPTV is projected to spend over $200,000 in fiscal year 2019 while the revenue generated is around $150,000. If UPTV continued on that trend, all reserve funds would be spent by the middle of fiscal year 2020. Jake’s retirement gave the City the opportunity to reassess the staff at UPTV so it doesn’t spend more than its revenues in fiscal year 2020 and beyond. Sanford reported prior to fiscal year 2019 the shared IT costs transferred from UPTV’s budget to the City’s budget covered the licensing of computer software and hardware. In fiscal year 2019, the money in the shared IT costs was now being noted in the budget as a transfer to the information technology fund and covered personnel costs based on the numbers of computer each office had. Unfortunately, this was burdensome on the UPTV budget since UPTV has so many computers. In fiscal year 2020, it is proposed that UPTV’s transfer to the information technology fund will go down from $35,573 to $15,000. This is based on both the computer hardware and software, but the personnel costs will be based on registered City users at UPTV (2) rather than just computers.  Chair Folk would like the City to examine the option of using a portion of the 5% Cable Franchise Fee to fund UPTV. D. New Public Access Channel Timeline Jason presented that by July 1, 2019 staff will report on the feasibility of a new public access television channel in Urbana. Staff will then spend the following six months finding community partners to run the new channel. Jason reviewed the history of the fifth channel and public access in Urbana. Sanford added that the City has been reviewing services delivered throughout every department over the last few years and if they can be defined as core services. Jake and Jason were tasked with developing other scenarios for delivering public access in Urbana other than the City just stopping to offer the service. Chair Folk asked staff to bring back examples of other services the City has cut. Commissioner Sinder asked if the City of Champaign had any interest in the fifth channel. Jason reached out to the City of Champaign and they wished him luck on his report of the feasibility of launching the channel. Commissioner Sinder asked if there would be any location requirements on where the fifth channel could operate. Jason felt the City of Urbana would love to see it continue to be a feature in Urbana, but staff is open to all proposals during at this time. Staff will approach existing organizations, which have a similar mission to UPTV’s, but the City is not opposed to a new organization forming with the desire to run the new access channel. Chair Folk asked staff to figure out what support the City can provide to an organization willing to run the fifth channel. Commissioner Sinder asked staff to consider the possibility of gaining funding to continue the public access service within the City structure. Chair Folk asked staff to present the cost of continuing the public access service within the City structure in the July report. 8. Commissioner’s Comments Commissioner Schultz stated he is happy to be back on the Commission serving as the Urbana Park District’s representative. 9. Set Meeting Date and Adjournment The next meeting was set for June 14, 2019 at 12:00 p.m. in the Urbana City Council Chambers. The meeting was adjourned at 1:19 p.m.