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Home My WebLink About2016-01-21-CAC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF JANUARY 21, 2016 Call to order. CAC Chair Ken Pogran called the meeting to order at 6:36 PM in the Parker Room (G-15), Town Hall. Present: CAC Members: Ken Pogran, Chair; Frank Cai; Smita Desai; Dorinda Goodman; Steve Iverson; Nick Lauriat; Linda Roemer; Ben Moroze; Dave Becker and David Buczkowski. Others: Timothy Zack, Prospective CAC Member; Florence DelSanto, LexMedia; Elaine Ashton; Kaisla Hietaniemi. Members absent : Maria Kieslich. Materials Passed out: December 17, 2015 meeting minutes; meeting agenda; draft LexMedia Working Group Timeline; draft Negotiations / Licensing Working Group timelines (three documents total); draft Wireless Working Group timeline; draft Wireless Applications Working Group timeline; and as-sent CAC response to the LexMedia Q1 report. 1.Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes. S. Iverson moved to approve the minutes of the meeting of December 17, 2015, F. Cai seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved. 2.Carrier Reports No representatives present. No reports were received, other than Tom Steele of RCN indicating he plans to attend the next meeting. 3.LexMedia Update – Florence DelSanto a.Annual meeting was conducted, board is intact. Board members who were up for relection decided to stay (and were reelected). Featured “best of” video produced by Rick. Florence said she will make a note to bring it to the CAC meeting. b.Introducing new reservation system for classes and equipment. c.Going to buy a new camera. “A staff camera” – a high end camera for cinematography. “To be used by the staff for news stories.” Used their other new camera for Christmas greetings “on the street” over the holidays. d.Still need to get live out of the community center – need to find the right (portable) system to do that. Another big capital purchase coming up. e.Florence is joining the board of the Chamber of Commerce. f.LexMedia has two new shows with Steve Iverson, including an interview with Florence and an interview with Jill Stein. g.LexMedia has been covering basketball games, producing a “Coffee with Candidates” series, and preparing for the Chinese New Year. h.Florence indicated that it has been difficult to keep up with the government meetings! Rick from LexMedia has been working very hard to keep up. i.LexMedia recorded (and has rebroadcast) the Cary Lectures. j.Dorinda asked if they had been able to use Cary Hall. Florence stated “the cameras are great, but the sound is a bit problematic.” Dorinda said she was going to start working on improving the cabling in Cary Hall, hopefully in time for Town Meeting. k.Elaine Ashton asked about the cameras in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room. Florence said she wasn’t aware of a problem, but that those were old cameras. They are the same as the ones removed from Cary Hall – which neither Dorinda nor LexMedia took. The consensus was that the contractor took them, or that they were lost, or that they were damaged and subsequently discarded. The committee suggested it may be time to upgrade the cameras in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room, and Ken asked Florence to recommend an upgraded system. l.Newton has added two more HD PEG channels on RCN. They previously had a single “best of” channel like Lexington, but now have all three PEG channels in HD. Florence indicated that Lexington’s server would handle that, which is the big investment, but LexMedia would require two more encoders. m.Florence thought that at least one town in Massachusetts had gotten a HD PEG channel from Comcast. She promised to find out and let the committee know. n.Smita noted that the annual report didn’t include the audited financials. Ken promised to look at the contract and consider adjusting the annual report date so that they could include audited financials. 4. Chairman’s Report a.Ken noted the next meeting was scheduled for school vacation week. It seemed like there would be a quorum of members present. b.Ken updated the schedule for complaints and recording secretary. c.Ken described an email from Carl regarding an FCC order preempting local cell site review (modest changes would not be subject to local review). Carl asked Ken if that would require adjustments to Lexington’s process. Frank said that adjustments to existing sites don’t come to the CAC as-is. Ken and Frank agreed that the committee doesn’t know if anyone in the zoning office reviews the application for adherence with zoning rules 5. Wireless Communications in Lexington a.The working group met January 11, and will meet again February 1. b.Carl and the procurement folks decided the cell tower project should go before the HDC, at least informally. c.Ken attended the HDC meeting on behalf of the CAC. The lawyer for AT&T spoke, Ken spoke, Chief Corr spoke, and the procurement folks spoke. d.The whole presentation got positive feedback from the HDC. HDC agreed that while they didn’t want an antenna, they understood the public safety needs. They also independently came up with the notion of building at the back of the police station parking lot, rather than in the existing location. e.Carl and procurement folks will take the next step with the procurement process. f.Working Group has agreed to reach out to all of the carriers to see what they need to improve service in town. The lawyer for AT&T also does work for Sprint and T-Mobile, and knows the folks at Verizon. He provided contacts to Ken. g.According to Dorinda, Crown Castle only does microcell installations. But they may be interested in working in Lexington. 6. Town IT Updates a.Posting for two new positions. Application administrator and desktop support. b.Trying focus on Cary to get it done before town meeting 7. Working Group Schedules: a.Committee Working Groups developed timelines in different formats; Ken wants to move towards a more uniform format. b.LexMedia Working Group reviewed their timeline – quarterly activities, annual activities, and contract renewal activities. Ken pointed out the timeline should include contract renewal dates, as well as contract expiration date (after which contract can no longer be renewed). c.The Negotiations / Licensing Working Group reviewed their timeline. The data was presented in two ways – both Excel format and GANTT chart. Ken was pleased with the visual representation of the process in the GANTT chart. Dave did point out that the milestones were based on the formal licensing process. The Working Group and the committee all agreed that hopefully the formal process won’t be required! d.The Wireless Working Group reviewed their timeline. Their goal is to have a set of recommendations set to submit to the BOS in June, and the schedule was developed by backing up from there. e.The Wireless Applications Working Group reviewed their timeline. Their activities are done on an as-needed basis over the course of two or three weeks. f.Ken asked everyone to think about the timelines, and to think about how to unify their work. Discuss again next month and figure out how to publish. 8. Wireless Applications No updates. 9. Complaints a.Complaint about Comcast billing from November was missed in CAC mailbox (it was not sent to Ken directly); Ken to do preliminary investigation and see if it is still an issue. b.No complaints received for December or so far in January. c.Ken to continue trying to make the complaint link more accessible. 10. New Member Application a.Tim Zack has applied to join the committee and was in attendance. He stated he has lived in Lexington for 16 years. He’s an “empty nester” “eager to get more involved in town.” He found out about the committee through the Citizens Academy. b.Tim described himself as a “nerd” who is very interested in IT problems. c.Tim expressed interest in the wireless topics discussed, and expressed interest in learning more about LexMedia. d.Smita moved to recommend Tim be appointed to the CAC by the Board of Selectmen. The motion was seconded by David Buczkowski. The motion passed unanimously. Ken will communicate the recommendation to the Board of Selectmen. 11. New business None 12. Adjournment David Buczkowski moved to adjourn, Smita seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 7:56 PM. Respectfully submitted, Nicholas A. Lauriat