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January 2008 CFB Minutes
January 22, 2007
MEMBERS PRESENT
Lara Beck , Member
Richard Curry Jr., Member
Loren Heger , Member
OTHERS PRESENT
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Rick Maultra, Cable Communications |
Marc Sultzer, Corporation Counsel |
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Cristy Tirotta, Cable Communications |
Robert Gobetz, ETC |
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Ken Montgomery, Channel 16 |
Robert Hoyt, Public Comment |
Acting Chair Lara Beck calls the January meeting of the Marion County Cable Franchise Board to order.
The first order of business is the Approval of the December 17, 2007 Minutes.
Mr. Heger moves to approve the December Minutes, Mr. Curry seconds the motion, and the motion is carried 3-0.
The next item on the Agenda is the Agency report submitted by Mr. Maultra, Director of the Cable Communications Agency.
Mr. Maultra thanks the Board for the opportunity to highlight some of the things that the Cable Communications Agency has been involved with during the past month.
The Indiana Reading and Information Services (IRIS) has provided their expenses and accounting for the fiscal year of 2007. This information was included in your Board packets. Their report includes those magazines and newspapers that are read to the visually impaired as part of the IRIS mission in serving our constituents. The $20,000 public purpose grant that we awarded in 2007 went toward IRIS broadcasting 24 hours a day with their 300 some volunteers reading more than 9,000 hours of print material which amounted to more than 83,000 recordings listened to each year.
AT&T is in the process of purchasing the equipment for the PEG interconnection with a January 29 install target by the City’s Building Authority. After that, AT&T plans a launch date of PEG channels somewhere in early February.
At a recent meeting of the City and County Chief Financial Officers , the Controller’s Office asked that all divisions participate in research whereby the City submits operating statistics to the Federal Government.
The GASB 44, which is the Government Accounting Standards Board, is ultimately used to assist readers in using financial statement information and to assess a government’s economic condition. The Cable Agency provided statistical information in many areas that we provide services for including revenue generated, video complaints taken, hours of production and cablecast and web site hits.
With respect to the Bright House audit review period of 2004-2006, the City is still waiting for payment on the amount of $73,308 that Bright House owes. We have followed up with Bright House recently with respect to this matter and they say they are still reviewing our auditor’s findings.
The Cable Communications Agency has been serving as a consumer advocate to Indianapolis and Marion County cable subscribers in assisting them in mediating cable complaints on their behalf.
For the month of December, the Cable Agency received a total of 5 complaints for Bright House . The high areas of complaints were primarily with billing procedures. For Comcast , the Agency received 19 complaints, even though the Agency’s contact information has been taken off of Comcast ’s billing statement. The high areas of complaints for Comcast were derived from programming, billing procedures, and telephone service.
That concludes Mr. Maultra’s Agency Report and remarks and he will answer any questions that the Board may have.
The next item on the agenda is the Government Access TV Programming Report with Mr. Ken Montgomery, Manager of Channel 16.
Mr. Montgomery will go over the December 2007 Programming and Production Report that was included in the Board Packets. Channel 16 completed 45 hours and 50 minutes of live and tape delayed meeting coverage for the month of December.
There were 9 hours and 42 minutes of specials and events production for the month of December. Channel 16 did 10 hours and 4 minutes of In-Kind Production for City-County/Government Agencies and 2 hours on Series Programs.
The total for new production in all categories was 67 hours and 36 minutes.
The In-Kind Services were tracked at $3,015 for materials and services for the month of December if Channel 16 would have charged for its services to city departments and agencies.
Mr. Montgomery has included an On-Line Archives Usage Report to track how the amount of requests for particular meetings.
With that, Mr. Montgomery will answer any questions from the Board.
The next item on the agenda is the Cable Operators Management Reports by Bright House Networks.
There were no representatives from Bright House Networks in attendance at the meeting.
However, their report was submitted for the Cable Franchise Board’s review prior to the meeting and is available on the website at the following link:
http://www.indygov.org/eGov/Cable/Reports/Operator/Bright_House/2007/1208+bhn.htm
There were no items under New Business or Old Business.
Mr. Robert Hoyt spoke under public comment.
Acting Chair Beck announced the next Board meeting on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008, at 2:30 PM in room 260 and adjourns this meeting.
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Ms. Lara Beck , Acting Chair |
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Mr. Loren Heger , Member |
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Mr. Richard Curry Jr. |
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Ms. Cristy Tirotta, Recording Secretary |
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