August 2007 CFB Minutes

August 20, 2007

 MEMBERS PRESENT

Peter Blum , Chairman
Lara Beck, Member
Richard Curry Jr., Member
Loren Heger, Member

 OTHERS PRESENT

Chairman Blum calls the August meeting of the Marion County Cable Franchise Board to order. 

 The first items on the agenda are the Approval of the April, June, and July Minutes. 

 Ms. Beck moves to approve the April Minutes.  Mr. Heger seconds the motion.  The motion is voted on 4-0.  Ms. Beck moves to approve the June and the July Minutes.  Mr. Heger seconds the motion.  The Minutes are approved 4-0.

 The next order of business 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 Cable Agency received a check from Bright House last week in the amount of $85,520 reflecting the auditor's findings for the 2002-2003 audit periods. That check was delivered to the City Controller's Office.

 The Agency's budget presentation on their revised budget was given on July 31 before the Finance & Administrative Committee of the City-County Council.  It allowed the Agency the opportunity to update the Council on the activities of the Cable Agency and Channel 16 over the past 12 months.

 The Cable Agency continues to be in discussion with AT&T with respect to carriage of our government and educational access channels on their video platform of UVERSE.  Technical compatibility and concern for quality have been the biggest concerns from a municipal perspective.  Mr. Maultra stated that in recent weeks the City has made what he hopes to be considerable progress on this matter. 

 Additionally, the Agency is starting to take some inquiries as to why the government access channels are not available for viewing for people who have switched over to AT&T.

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 July, the Cable Agency received a total of 20 complaints for Bright House .  The high areas of complaints were primarily with Modem/Internet services and service interruptions.  For Comcast , the Agency received 11 complaints since the Agency's contact information has been taken off of Comcast 's billing statement.  The high areas of complaints for Comcast were derived from their 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 July 2007 Programming and Production Report that was included in the Board packets.  July was a relatively healthy month for Channel 16 with 68 hours and 11 minutes of live and tape delayed meeting coverage.

 There were 11 hours and 46 minutes of specials and events production for the month of July.  Channel 16 did 2 hours and 7 minutes of In-Kind Production for City-County/Government Agencies and 1 hour and 30 minutes on Series Programs

 The total for new production in all categories was 83 hours and 34 minutes. 

The In-Kind Services were tracked at $6,880 for materials and services for the month of July if Channel 16 would have charged.

 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. 

 Al Aldridge, Director of Public Affairs and Buz Nesbit, Division President for Bright House Networks will present their operator's management report that was distributed to the Board. 

  Bright House began the month with 57,743 customers and ended the month with 57,139, giving a system total of 604 customers loss for the month of July.

 On the incoming call report, Bright House handled 56,390 calls out of 56,688 calls received.  52,722 calls were answered in 30 seconds or less, which gave a call answer rate of 93.5% and a busy rate of 0.006%, as represented by them.

 On the Complaint Summaries Report, there were 19 complaints from 13 customers. 

100% of service interruption calls were addressed within 24 hours. 

There were no planned outages, but there were 24 unplanned outages that affected 4,325 customers.  The system reliability for the month was 99.99%, as reported by Bright House .

 100% of total service calls were addressed within the next business day, unless as otherwise directed by the customer.  There were no appointments kept outside of the 4-hour service window during normal business hours, unless requested by customer.

100% of standard installations were performed within seven business days after the order was placed.

There was construction done at Spring Street Condos and National Place Apartments during the month of July.

The Division was again a major sponsor for the Indiana Black Expo's 2007 "Summer Celebration."  In conjunction with Comcast, Bright House sponsored the IBE Corporate Luncheon and produced the video saluting the IBE corporate sponsors.  Bright House also hosted a joint information booth in the Convention Center for the 3-day weekend of the cultural event.   The Division also sponsored the Cultural Arts fund-raiser "Dance Diaspora," and was the major sponsor of the "Ohio Valley Star Quest" Star Quest is a regional youth talent competition.

The Division sponsored "Carmel Fest," a 4^th of July festival.  This event includes a parade, games and food.  For the first time, Bright House entered the Bright House Networks float in the Carmel Fest parade.  Bright House also donated a $1,000 gift certificate for the events fundraiser. This was their 4^th year of sponsoring this event.

The Division set up a computer lab in one of the Divisions' training rooms in July and hosted 16 kids from IPS school 51 for a week.  The students were also giving a special 1-hour session on Internet safety and the Video Program Ratings system.  The lab was staffed with BHN employee volunteers.

Al Aldridge was the recipient of the 2007 LIS Daly Outstanding Board Service Award presented at the Minority Volunteer Recognition Breakfast in July.  The Executive Director of Hemophilia of Indiana nominated him for his 14+years of volunteer board service to Hemophilia of Indiana, Inc.  Neither Al nor anyone in his family has Hemophilia.

Members of the Division continue to volunteer with the Indianapolis Public Schools Education Foundation, Gideon's Gate, the Indiana Cable Telecommunications Assn., the YMCA, the 100 Black Men, LEAD, Inc, the Indianapolis chapter, the Coalition of 100 Black Women and the Indiana Hemophilia Foundation, and IPS School 51.

Mr. Aldridge offers to answer any questions that the Board may have.

The next item in the agenda is the ETC Monthly Report submitted by Mr. Robert Gobetz.

George Washington Community School produced "GWCS: A Proud Learning Community", a program that examines the rich history of GWCS and the strong community that makes the school unique. This program will be seen on ETC 1 throughout the month of September.

The August meeting was the ETC's first presided by Interim President Robert Gobetz.

The ETC was contacted by Steve Powell of AT&T U-Verse to discuss putting the ETC channels on their video service. A meeting will be scheduled between Powell and Gobetz.

Mr. Gobetz offers to answers any questions that the Board may have.

The next item under New Business is the Approval of the 2008 Budget. 

Mr. Maultra stated that the Cable Franchise Board usually votes on the budget but there was not a quorum at the last meeting.  The budget has been presented to the Finance and Administrative Committee on July 31^st, 2008.  The presentation went well but since then, there have been some changes.

In summary, the proposed budget for 2008 is flat as compared to 2007's.

In character 1, there has been an increase of $231.00

Monies have been moved from character 4 and out into character 2 and 3 on the Channel 16 side.  The increase in character 2 was for batteries and in character 3; an increase of $10,000.00 went into sub-object 356 for equipment maintenance and repairs.

There will be no increase for the Public Purpose Grants.  They will remain the same as 2007.  The IRIS Grant will remain at $20,000 and the ETC Grant for Indiana University will remain at $41,050.

Mr. Maultra recommends that the Board approve the budget for 2008.

Ms. Beck moves to approve the Budget for 2008.  Mr. Curry seconds the motion and it is carried unanimously.

The next item on the agenda is the ETC public Purpose Grant.

The Education Television Cooperative (ETC) is requesting their annual Public Purpose Grant which comes out of character 3 of the Cable Agency's budget for the amount of $41,050.00.  The City is currently holding all Public Purpose Grants until the cash flow for the City improves but that does not prevent the Cable Fr5anchise Board from approving this Grant.  This is an operational grant that is essentially used for manpower.  This is not for equipment.

Mr. Heger moves to approve the Public Purpose Grant for ETC for the amount of $41,050.00.  Ms. Herriman seconds the motion and it is carried unanimously.

Jean Coughlin spoke under Public Comment.

Chairman Blum announces the next Board meeting on Monday, September 17^th, 2007 at 2:30 PM in room 260 and adjourns this meeting.

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