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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSBCCF Min 1996-05-20 . . . SEAL BEACH CABLE COMMUNICATIONS FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES FOR MAY 20, 1996 The Board of Directors for the Seal Beach Cable Communications Foundation met May 20, 1996 at 7:00 p.m. at the Comcast facility in Seal Beach, California. Mr. Mueller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. ROLL CALL Mr. Clow, Mr. Anninos, Mr. Rowland and Mr. Mueller were present. Mr. Palmer was absent. Ms. Linda Hossinger, Ms. Marilee Jackson and Ms. Robin Fort-Lincke from Comcast were present. CONSENT CALENDAR REVIEW OF MINUTES OF APRIL 15. 1996 Mr. Anninos made a motion to receive and file the minutes of the meeting from May 20, 1996. Mr. Clow seconded the motion. AYES: Mr. Clow, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Anninos NAYS: -0- ABSTAIN: Mr. Rowland MOTION PASSED: 3-0 FINANCIAL REPORT Mr. Mueller gave an overview of the financial report and said that the Board is still solvent. CHECK REQUEST Mr. Mueller asked Ms. Fort-Lincke to differentiate between new items on the check request and the items previously voted on by the Board. After clarification, Mr. Rowland made a motion to accept and pay the check request. Mr. Clow seconded the motion. AYES: Mr. Clow, Mr. Anninos, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Rowland NAYS: -0- MOTION PASSED: 4-0 ACCESS FEE FOR JEFF MEADOWS Mr. Clow made a motion to accept and pay the studio access fee for Jeff Meadows. Mr. Anninos seconded the motion. AYES: Mr. Mueller, Mr,'Anninos, Mr. Clow, Mr. Rowland NAYES: -0- MOTION PASSED: 4-0 . . . PG 2 SBCCF MINUTES 5/20/96 ACCESS FEE FOR CHRIS BARR Mr. Clow made a motion to accept and pay the studio access fee for Chris Barr. Mr. Anninos seconded the motion. AYES: Mr. Rowland, Mr. Anninos, Mr. Clow, Mr. Mueller NA YES: -0- MOTION PASSED: 4-0 OLD BUSINESS COMCAST FRANCHISE RENEWAL Mr. Mueller advised the Board that Mr. Carl Pilnick had been chosen as the consultant by the committee for the franchise negotiations for the City of Seal Beach. He f!aid that as of this date the Board has received no request from the city for funding the consultant fees. Mr. Anninos suggested that the public and the rest of the Board members be included to speak with the consultant. AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION Mr. Rob Roy commended Ms. Fort-Lincke on the success of the open house. He commended Russ Bauman on his design of the trophy awards. He also stated that he enjoyed judging the programs from Leisure World and it was hard to choose between them because they were all good productions. He also stated that he was disappointed that there was no representation, no letter and no flowers from Comcast at the open house. Mr. Fred Aguilar stated that he enjoyed the open house and that he was a new public access producer in Seal Beach and he hoped that he would see more participation in the program. Ms. Marilee Jackson from Comcast introduced herself to the Board and then she introduced the new General Manager for Comcast Ms. Linda Hossinger to the Board and the audience. She said that she would like to be more involved with the Board and public access program and that she is available by pager which is 714 570-5622. Ms. Hossinger explained her position with Comcast and indicated that both she and Ms. Jackson would be available to the Board and welcomed an amicable relationship. Mr. Mueller explained to Ms. Hossinger and Ms. Jackson the bad relationship between Comcast and the Board during the days of Mr. Bill Gray and how badly the Board and the public access program were treated by Comcast employees. He also stated that Mr. Steve Rosenthal completely bypassed the Board just last year and - . . PG 3 SBCCF 5/20/96 MINUTES had made a "behind the back" deal with the city regarding the $75,000 for the public access program and LIO programming. Ms. Hossinger explained her background with the other cable boards in the Orange County system and the negative feedback she has received with regard to Comcast, including the Seal Beach area. Mr. Clow stated his name for the record. He explained that he wasn't always credited correctly by name in the minutes of the meetings. Mr. Jeff Meadows said that he wanted to reiterate Mr. Roy's previous statements. Mr. Arnold asked to wait until everyone else has spoken or until Board Communications. Mr. Clow stated that he felt that Mr. Mueller had explained the situation with the Board and Comcast very well and that it didn't look like anyone else was going to speak at this point. Mr. Arnold said that he challenged every Board member to read the contract if they hadn't already. He said that each member should understand what Franchise fee means and to have long range thinking. He said that Comcast was in noncompliance of many issues and that it would be an uphill battle. He asked all present to relay all concerns to Mr. Mueller. Ms. Hossinger said that she looks at it as a way to work together with the city. She said that she doesn't feel that it should be an adversarial situation. She also said that she and Greg had met with the city manager and advised him that the rebuild in Seal Beach could be as early as July. She said that they are not waiting for the franchise renewal and they are not be forced to rebuild. She said that this was an indication of the Comcast philosophy of "joint effort" . Mr. Mueller asked Ms. Hossinger what sort of state-of-the-art equipment Comcast is considering. Ms. Hossinger explained that there are lots of choices of state-of-the-art equipment. Mr. Mueller asked Ms. Hossinger if the subscriber would see the difference. Mr. Rowland asked what will all of this have to do with public access. Ms. Hossinger said that would be a franchise negotiation issue. Mr. Anninos asked Ms. Hossinger why the converter boxes aren't stereo. He also asked why we did not have two-way communication when the system was originally designed as two-way. He also stated that he was concerned about excessive channel compression because his experience with it was not favorable. Ms. Hossinger said that in the rebuild, stereo capability will be set up at the head- end. She explained that two-communication was too expensive. . . . PG 4 SBCCF 5/20/96 MINUTES Mr. Anninos asked Ms. Hossinger what things she envisioned for two-way communication. Ms. Hossinger stated that they were testing hi-speed data back east and the initial test were 100 times faster. She said that there would be lots of changes in the next year. She also said that modems and so on would have an extra cost and that there would be no additional services without additional payment from customers. Mr. Anninos stated that cable in the classroom needed to be addressed. Mr. Roy stated that Comcast had addressed the technical aspects of what to look forward to and that it all sounded very exciting, but he didn't hear anything about public access. He said that there doesn't seem to be an interest by Comcast for programming for the community. He said that there is no help for the public access coordinator and that public access is of great interest to the city of Seal Beach. Mr. Anninos stated that his feelings were the same as Mr. Roy and reiterated that public access is of great interest to the community, the Board and the city. Mr. Clow stated that the Board previously sponsored educational programming by Coastline College and Cal State Fullerton and there was no money from Comcast. Mr. Mueller explained to Ms. Hossinger that Channel 53 was Coastline College and Channel 55 was Cal State Fullerton and Comcast sponsored nothing, but the Board contributed alot of money for programming. Mr. Anninos stated that some of the Coastline programs were telecommunications courses and briefly explained them. Mr. Arnold asked Ms. Hossinger for the structure for rates, what the time frame would be and the channel line up. He also asked Ms. Hossinger what basic cable would become. Ms. Hossinger stated that she would not have that information until after the rebuild. Mr. Arnold expressed his concern that what is basic cable now would not be basic cable in the future and that if things were going to be taken away, what was going to be added. NEW BUSINESS Mr. Mueller stated that there was no new business. REPORTS PUBLIC ACCESS Ms. Fort-Lincke stated that the open house was very successful and that the Board should be very proud. She said that Mr. Roy did a tremendous about of the work and she thanked him and said that other volunteers also helped out and the turnout was great. She said that Russ Bauman made the trophies for the awards and that . . . PG 5 SBCCF 5/20/96 MINUTES they turned out wonderful. Mr. Roy retrieved a trophy to display to the Board. Mr. Anninos stated that the open house went very well and that everyone did a great job. He commended Ms. Fort-Lincke on all her work. Mr. Aguilar said that he wondered why more producers weren't involved but that he was new and hadn't probably met everyone yet. He explained his experience in Norwalk with their public access program and that he was surprised that there is only one person handling the public access program. He stated that in Norwalk they had several people available in teaching, editing, productions and so on. He also said that when he first contacted Ms. Fort-Lincke it took her about a week to return his phone call but after completing the program and being around more he could understand that with one person handling everything how that could happen. Mr. Aguilar suggested attending andlor covering more public functions and that perhaps there was a way to involve more creative people in town and develop more participation. Mr. Anninos stated that in Long Beach at CVI, that the public access program produces between 140-160 shows a month and that CVI perceives and promotes public access and a asset to the community of Long Beach. LOCAL ORIGINATIONILOS ALAMITOS Ms. Fort-Lincke stated that she had given the Board's concerns regarding local origination to Ms. Jackson. Ms. Jackson asked the Board if there was ever a time when things were ok. Mr. Mueller stated that in the past there had been more variety and that recently, the Board was given the list of proposal for approval when almost all the programs had already been done. He said that this year, it looked like there were more school events than usual. He said that there are several issues in town of considerable interest that should be covered by Comcast. He stated that he was aware that Comcast has talented freelancers and that some of that talent should be used for Seal Beach. Ms. Jackson asked the Board if the schedule had ever run other than March to March. Mr. Mueller explained that the contract ran from March to March. Ms. Hossinger said that Comcast would need to know ahead of time what programs to cover so that they could arrange crews. Mr. Anninos stated that in addition to simply covering an event that Comcast should put some effort into the content as well such as the DWP property, what's going on, what it means, etc. Ms. Jackson asked the Board for a little time to prepare an example of subjects for Comcast to cover. . . 4t PG 6 SBCCF 5/20/96 MINUTES Mr. Rowland said that the agreed with Mr. Anninos that there are more than events to cover in Seal Beach. He suggested the Hellman property, the Bixby property, the Leisure World library and programs with more investigative reporting. Mr. Mueller stated that it would be nice to see the programs that the Board pays for more than one time. Ms. Jackson asked for some time to look at that also. Mr. Anninos brought up the movie marathon. Ms. Hossinger explained that there would be no more movie marathons. She also explained that with the rebuild that there will be more channels which will eliminate this problem. Mr. Anninos said that copies are made of local origination programs which are paid for by the Board, but no money from the copies go to the Board. Ms. Jackson said that it might be more of a hassle than it's worth when charging $20.00 per copy and determining the difference split between Comcast and the Board. Mr. Clow said that years ago, the studio fee for public access was $25.00 and that Mr. Bill Gray had raised it to $35.00. He asked whether that was legal. He also said that public access is charged $400.00 per van shoot and asked why it was not free. CORRESPONDENCE Mr. Mueller read aloud to the Board a letter of resignation by Ms. Betty Dahlin. BOARD COMMUNICATIONS Mr. Clow asked about the 34% management fee assessed to the invoices from Comcast and how they were doing about bringing it down. Ms. Jackson explained that Comcast had absorbed the difference at the time of the increase for quite awhile before it was passed on to the Board. Mr. Clow said that it would be in both parties interest to find lower services. Mr. Anninos stated that he hoped that once negotiations had begun with Comcast that public access and community programming for Seal Beach would continue to be a bright and shining star and other facilities would want to be like them. . ' , . . 4t PG 7 SBCCF 5/20/96 MINUTES ADJOURNMENT Mr. Rowland made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8: 3Opm. Mr. Clow seconded the motion. AYES: Mr. Anninos, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Clow, Mr. Rowland NAYES: -0- MOTION PASSED: 4-0 ~~ C-~ / Robin Fort-Lincke, ComcasC Joseph Palmer, Chairman