March 17th, 2008 CFB Minutes

March 17, 2008

 MEMBERS PRESENT

 Dean Farmer, Chairman
Loren Heger , Member

 MEMBERS ABSENT

  Richard Curry Jr., Member

 OTHERS PRESENT

Chairman Farmer calls the March meeting of the Marion County Cable Franchise Board to order at 2:30 PM.  There is not a quorum so he moves directly to item 4 on the agenda, the Cable 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 Cable Agency has submitted its proposed budget cuts as requested by the Controller’s Office for 2008. Most of the reductions taken were in character 3 for consulting and travel and character 4 for equipment and repairs.

The Agency will need the Cable Board to approve the revised ETC grant that in particular reflects the change in the amount of the grant being reduced to $37,749.74 to be distributed to the University of Indianapolis .  This change is necessitated because the controller allowed for IUPUI’s ETC obligations to be paid for monies they distributed under an existing purchase order to IUPUI.  However, the Controller’s Office is not allowing fiscal ordinances that allow a previous year’s encumbrance to go to the following year.  Consequently, the Agency has had to find monies in their budget to pay that grant which has essentially lowered our 2008 budget by another 5%.

The Agency has been working with counsel and the Controller’s Office on a proposal which will tie in the fiscal agent change with a fiscal ordinance to move monies within our budget to different characters to cover the amount of the grant.  The Agency has also secured the councilor sponsors for the measure, as well.

The Board Chair, counsel and Mr. Maultra met recently with officials from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to discuss a wide array of issues. 

Included in those is a request by the IURC that the Agency no longer process video complaints for constituents because the IURC claims that they will do so under the provisions of enforcing the FCC Customer Service Standards.  It is their understanding that they will be enforcing those Standards effective this Wednesday, March 19.  This will apply to Comcast and AT&T.  It is important to note that the City and the Cable Communications Agency had been serving as an advocate to the constituents on video issues because the IURC had either turned these constituents away or in many cases, sent them the Agency’s way to help solve customer problems.

With respect to the Bright House audit review period of 2004-2006, the City is issuing a demand letter to the company that it now owes the City $75,000+ as of February 28 of this year. Consistent with the Bright House franchise agreement and City Code, the Office of Corporation Counsel has also requested that amount above and beyond what the City had been liable in paying in past years to execute a franchise fee review be reimbursed back to the City.

 Through the assistance of Councilor Jeff Cardwell, the Agency has been meeting with private sector entities in looking to create public/private partnership opportunities to promote economic development for the City. This would be done through some of the resources we already have in place.

 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 February, the Cable Agency received a total of 1 complaint from AT&T regarding programming.  The Agency received 5 complaints for Bright House .  The complaints were derived from several areas.  For Comcast , the Agency received 24 complaints, even though the Agency’s contact information has been taken off of Comcast ’s billing statements.  The high areas of complaints for Comcast were derived from programming, service interruptions, and customer 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 goes over the March 2008 Programming and Production Report that was included in the Board Packets.  

Channel 16 covered 37 different meetings for a total of 46 hours and 14 minutes of live and tape delayed meeting coverage for the month of February.

There were 22 hours, 48 minutes and 30 seconds of specials and events production for the month of February.  Channel 16 did 8 hours of In-Kind Production for City-County/Government Agencies and 2 hours and 30 minutes of Series Programs.

The total for new production in all categories was 79 hours, 32 minutes and 30 seconds.

Mr. Montgomery shares the Online Archives Usage Report with the Board for February. 

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. 

Buz Nesbit, Division President for Bright House Networks presented the Operator’s Management Report that was distributed to the Board. 

Mr. Nesbit offers to answer any questions from the Board regarding Bright House Network’s monthly report that was included in their Board packets.

 Mr. Nesbit states that Bright House is the only company providing video service in Indianapolis providing their subscriber numbers.  He added that he would certainly like to see the competitors’ numbers as well.  Mr. Nesbit requests to have a discussion regarding the information given for public record.

 Mr. Farmer would like to touch base on the issues regarding the ETC channels since they moved to the University of Indianapolis .  It is Mr. Farmer understands that the signal is first sent from the University to Bright House and then passed on from there.  He added that the signal needs to be cleaned up as certain channels are not coming in and it may be due to a connectivity issue.

 The next item on the agenda is the ETC Monthly Report submitted by Mr. Rob Gobetz, ETC Secretary and Treasurer.

 For ETC New Programming, Tamika Williams proposed “ IPS State of the District,” a 60-minute program that will air in March and April and will feature IPS Superintendent Eugene White’s “State of the District” address.

 Transfer of funds should be completed from Rick Maultra to University of Indianapolis .  Because this is taking longer than expected, the Community Learning Network of IUPUI is paying the salary of ETC’s employee until the first week of May if necessary.  CLN will be repaid by ETC when the transfer is complete.

 Mr. Gobetz offers to answer questions from the Board regarding his report.

 Mr. Gobetz introduces Mr. Michael Broughton, Vice President for Business and Finance for the University of Indianapolis to answer any question pertaining to the fiscal transfer.

 Mr. Maultra asks Mr. Harrison what constitutes a quorum if there are three sitting Board members but two vacant spots.  He asks if it is the majority of the quorum or if three members are still needed for a vote.

 Mr. Farmer calls for a recess at 2:58 pm so Mr. Harrison of Corporation Counsel can look into the matter.

 Mr. Farmer calls order back to the meeting at 3:14 pm and will move on to Public Comment.

 Carl Kaksuleff spoke under Public Comment regarding several issues from new digital line-up, public access television and franchise fees.

Mr. Farmer responds to Mr. Kaksuleff that franchise fees are still being collected at the State level and are being disbursed down to the local entity and the AT&T Uverse issue is still ongoing.

 Mr. Maultra adds that the Bright House franchise will expire in October 2008 and they will have to apply for a State certificate.

 Mr. Harrison advises at this point that since no one has been able to contact Mr. Curry to adjourn the meeting and go forward with a 48-hour posting for another meeting to go over voting matters.

 There are no comments from the Board.

 Chairman Farmer announced the next scheduled Board meeting on Monday April 21^st, 2008, at 5:30 PM in room 118 and adjourns this meeting.

Home | Search | Services | Mayor | Council | City | County | Courts

© 1996 - 2008 All Rights Reserved | Privacy Statement | Terms of Use | About this Site