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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-09-15-CAC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 Call to order. CAC Chair Ken Pogran called the meeting to order at 6:31 PM in the Parker Room (G-15), Town Office Building, 1625 Massachusetts Avenue. Members Present: Ken Pogran, Chair; Smita Desai; Dorinda Goodman; Steve Iverson; Nick Lauriat; Ben Moroze; Dave Becker; Tim Zack Members Absent: Dave Buczkowski, Maria Kieslich, Frank Cai Quorum: A quorum of members was present. Others Present: Board of Selectmen: Joe Pato; Suzie Barry; Town of Lexington: Rob Addelson;AT&T Mobility: Ed Pare, Dan Bileyikian, Patrick Nysten Materials Passed out: AT&T Mobility Lexington Mass. Ave Relo Plans, AT&T Mobility Lexington Mass Ave Relo MA3352 Photographic Renderings, Current AT&T LTE coverage in Lexington, Operator Payment Schedule, Operator Payment Schedule in Lieu of Inet, Potential Problems with Public Hearing During Board Meeting 1.Review and Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes. No comments received. Smita Desai made a motion to approve the minutes of the meeting of June 16, 2016, Dave Becker seconded the motion. The minutes were unanimously approved. 2.Service Provider Reports Jill Reddish and Tom Steel will be here next month. Ken did not hear from Jane Lyman at Comcast. No reports were received, other than Tom Steel of RCN indicating he plans to attend the next meeting. 3.Selectmen’s Report - Joe Pato Joe mentioned that the Small Cell site hearing occurred at the BOS meeting on July 25th. He did not believe there were other events significant to the committee other than it would be nice to have better cellular coverage in town, which the committee is already working on. Ken Pogran asked Joe how he thought Small Cell meeting went. Joe mentioned that the selectmen did not discuss it, but Joe thought it went well. He did mention there was more feedback on the proposal than they expected. Dave Becker wanted to make sure the BOS were aware of the legal requirements for a public meeting for the RCN transfer of ownership, which includes notification in newspapers 2 weeks in advance of the meeting. 4.Chairman’s Report a.Committee reappointments, retirements, and new member solicitation Maria Kieslich and Frank Cai have decided not to renew their membership on the CAC. They will receive a letter from the BOS thanking them for their service. There are currently two 2 openings on the committee. Ken will send an email to the Lexington Yahoo list to solicit members and asked those in attendance to solicit members via word of mouth. b.Review of 2016–2017 dates and assignments i.Meeting dates and locations were reviewed and will remain the third Thursday of every month. ii.Dave Becker asked if the number required for a quorum changes now that we are down 2 members. Ken responded it does not as the quorum remains a majority of the people that are supposed to be on the committee. The CAC is chartered for 11 members so a quorum is 6 people. iii.Smita will not be able to make the November meeting iv.New lists for Recording Secretary and Complaints assignments were sent out via email. c.Town Annual Report contribution—due Oct 31. Members asked what we reported to the Town in previous years and Ken said he would send out last year’s submission via email. Smita Desai volunteered to help write this year’s report. Ken will circulate the draft and the committee would review in the October meeting. d.A change to the LexMedia contract that would modify the due date for the annual report so that it could include the final accounting reports was cleared by the Town Manager’s office and will go forward. e.RCN license update regarding hub relocation – It was agreed RCN’s license needs to be updated with the new location of their hub in Arlington even with the upcoming license renewal. RCN was caught up in new ownership transition activities, so they did not provide a report on their hub relocation. 5.Retiring Member Recognition – Unfortunately, none of the retiring members were present. 6.Small cell wireless update – Ken Pogran, Ben Moroze Ken Pogran, Ben Moroze, Dorinda Goodman, and Tim Zack attended a presentation from Verizon Wireless on their small site plans on July 13th. Town approval for th small sites required a public meeting which occurred at the BOS meeting on July 25. Ken, Ben, and Dorinda attended this meeting. Ken explained that the main goal of the small sites was to improve capacity and recommended to the BOS that they approve Verizon’s request. Several residents were concerned about various antenna placements as they were near their house and had concerns about radiation, home value, and appearance. Dave Becker stated that Verizon claimed they could legally install the antennas with or without the approval of the BOS. Ken responded that we needed to hold a hearing and if the town said Verizon could not install the small sites, there could have been legal costs the town would have had to bear if we went to litigation. The BOS approved Verizon Wireless’ request unanimously. Nick Lauriat asked if Verizon was already moving forward with the installations and Ken said he did not know. In anticipating that more carriers will be taking this approach to adding capacity, Dave Becker asked if we could persuade carriers to co-locate their small antennas. It was stated by Ken that the antennas must be separate for each carrier. Ben distributed notes from the BOS meeting via email. 7.Police Station cell tower – AT&T et al. Rob Addelson Discussions between town and AT&T – Two potential sites behind the Police Station are being explored for a new tower. AT&T conducted a balloon test where the fire department extended a ladder with extension to get to 120 feet, which was found to be the height required for point-to- point communications with other towers in town. Photos were taken from Mass Ave. to see what the impact would be on view scape. They asked the Historic District Commission if they had a preference in the placement and the commission expressed a preference for one of the locations. The town has the information they need for an RFP for the new towers and they plan to issue it in shortly. The plan is for a third party will construct the tower and provide, slots for public safety communication and to allow redundant systems for communications and data. AT&T has requested that they be temporarily provided some space for antennas on the Police Department tower while they look for a permanent replacement for the Muzzey condo site, where the lease will end in December. They were not looking for any action as yet, just making the CAC aware. The RFP process will not be completed before their current lease at Muzzey expires so work began on adding an antenna to the existing on police station tower while they work thru the RFP process. AT&T is close to an agreement with the town on the Police antenna. They have a design that doesn’t interfere with existing communication. The plans AT&T presented that are not yet approved and they may be tweaked before approval. The building commission can provide a temporary use building permit for AT&T on the existing Police tower if the approval process gets drawn out. To accommodate the new AT&T antenna on the existing Police antenna, a fence will be built around equipment cabinets on the side of the building. Some equipment may need to be relocated, but the Chief of Police had no issue with it. Ken asked about the coverage difference from the existing antenna at Muzzey and AT&T replied it was not quite as good. AT&T provided a heat map for the temporary location and without Muzzey. It provides necessary coverage, but not over quite as large an area. Nick asked about new antennas overloading exiting radios there. AT&T said there will be no interference or structural issues by adding antennas to the existing Police Tower. Nick also asked what if Verizon comes in and wants the same deal. We need to make sure we aren’t providing favored status to AT&T. It was pointed out that Verizon is not losing a key cell site and Dave Becker stated that AT&T is the only operator in Muzzey. They need to protect their signal. Ed Pare said the antenna on the Police Station tower site is temporary with a one year lease. Nick asked if the lease includes remediation of the tower when the lease is up. Ed stated AT&T would be responsible to return site to way it was. Dave B asked how long it would take to construct tower. Ed stated AT&T would move quickly but it would take months. Procurement would take 60-90 days The RFP for the new tower was expected to be released within a few weeks. 8.LexMedia update – Florence DelSanto Florence was not present, but Ken received an email from her stating LexMedia is working on adding the two new HD channels up. They expect the annual report to be ready in middle of the month. Ken will forward it to the LexMedia working committee when he receives it. 9.Town IT update – Dorinda Goodman The move of the RCN NOC to Arlington occurred over the summer. 35 hours was spent slicing active fiber. Testing of the fiber couldn’t be done at the time of the cutover as the fiber was active, but some post analysis found some signal loss. Some fibers may need to be re-spliced. Dorinda also stated that after the move, a router re-programming led to an outage, but the connection has been stable for about a month. It is Dorinda’s understand that RCN is completely out of the Liberty Mutual Building. Ken asked about plans for greater network redundancy – Dorinda stated the town is currently doing a network analysis that includes a redesign to have a redundant head end The town is also doing a cyber security study that is partially funded by state grant The new CIO Tom Case started in August and Ken was going to invite him to a future CAC meeting. 10.Initiation of RCN license renewal process – Dave Becker, Nick Lauriat RCN submitted FCC form 394 – transfer of ownership for cable licensee which kicks off a process determined by state and federal regulations. It gives a municipality 30 days to look for anything incorrect or that needs clarification in the filing. State Regulations require we hold a public hearing about the transfer of ownership within 60 days of the notice and the town needs to provide approval within 120 days. If the town does nothing, the transfer will be approved. State regulations say if the town approves, it must be reported to state DTC. This sale is similar to the most recent RCN purchase, which had a standalone public hearing in Lexington. RCN is saying this is transfer of financial interest to TPG partners who are also acquiring another provider. RCN management is not changing, nor are programming or services th The public hearing needs to be held 60 days from sept 9 Dave added requirements about a standalone public hearing: th Send ad copy to the Minuteman by October 7 to get in into the paper in time to meet public meeting laws Accepted practice in town has been to allow time for written comments after the hearing, so we should to wait a week or more before saying hearing has been completed, even though no public comments were received after similar meetings in the past. There is no requirement to keep the meeting open for comment after the public meeting After some discussion it was decided to add the public hearing on the RCN sale to th the beginning of the BOS Meeting on October 24. The Town also received formal notification from RCN that they will be applying for a license renewal, which is still 3 years away. Dave Becker proposed that Ken write letters to the schools and town to see if there were any new requirements they have that we should add onto the new license. It was stated that the CAC needs a formal statement from the BOS to th begin work on the renewal. This was scheduled for the September 26BOS meeting. Ken asked Dave and Nick to prepare a motion for the BOS meeting. 11.Service provider payments to the Town – Dave Becker, Tim Zack Since there are many new personnel in the Town office, Dave created a spreadsheet that outlines when the town should expect payments by operators and what the payments were for. Dave also met with Rob to discuss the use of INET vs. PEG funds in town and stated he made a lot of progress. Dave also analyzed the PEG and INET funds Comcast is sending to the town and it appears Comcast is claiming a larger credit for state and federal fees than they should be which is shortchanging payments to Lexington. Ken asked Dave and Tim Zack to meet with Jane Lyman to find out how Comcast is doing their accounting. 12.Working group assignments for 2016-2017 f.LexMedia Oversight - Steve Iverson and Smita Desai g.Negotiations & Licensing – Nick Lauriat, Dave Buczkowski and Dave Becker h.Wireless Communications – Ken Pogran, Dorinda Goodman, Ben Moroze i.PEG accounts – Dave Becker and Tim Zack j.Wireless Applications Review - Ben Moroze and Nick Lauriat 13.Wireless applications – Ben Moroze None 14.Complaints –Ben Moroze (June) - none, Nick Lauriat (July) - none, Smita Desai (August) - none, Dave Buczkowski (September), one via town website. It was concerning the fact that FIOS advertises 100 Mbps Internet speeds but the complainant wanted to know why only 75 Mbps was available in Lexington. Dave Becker stated the CAC is only chartered to help in Cable TV related matters and not necessarily for Internet, but we could help as a courtesy Upcoming :Tim Zack (October), Dave Becker (November) 15.Election of Committee Chair, 2016–2017 Ken Pogran was nominated as CAC committee chair for the CAC 2016-17 by Nick Lauriat. Steve Iverson and Smita Desai seconded the motion. Ken was unanimously elected as chairman 16.New business None 17.Adjournment Smita made a motion to adjourn, Ken seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 8:17 PM Respectfully submitted, Tim Zack