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Home My WebLink About2016-10-20-CAC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF OCTOBER 20, 2016 Call to order. CAC Chair Ken Pogran called the meeting to order at 6:35 PM in the Parker Room (G-15) of the Town Office Building, 1625 Massachusetts Avenue. Members Present: Ken Pogran, Chair; Nick Lauriat; Ben Moroze; Dave Becker; Dorinda Goodman; Smita Desai; Tim Zack Members Absent: David Buczkowski; Steve Iverson Quorum: A quorum of members was present. Others Present: Jill Reddish, Verizon; Florence DelSanto, LexMedia; Rita Vachani, Resident Materials Distributed: Revised Draft minutes of the September 15 meeting RCN License Transfer Public Hearing Notice LexMedia Financial Review Draft CAC response to the LexMedia Annual Report Draft of the CAC contribution to the Town Annual Report Application to the CAC from Rita Vachani Rita Vachani "profile." 1.Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes a.Smita moved that the minutes be approved, Dave Becker seconded. Minutes were unanimously approved. 2.Service Provider Reports a.Jill Reddish, Verizon: i.There was a subscriber in Lexington who wanted to upgrade to 100/100, but the address wasn’t qualified in Verizon’s system. Wound up getting escalated, and Jill was able to help the customer. ii.“Last chance promotion” is going on right now. b.Ken Pogran read the email report from Tom Steel of RCN: i.Tom is unable to attend due to the on-going license transfers. Numerous evening hearings. ii.Will appear on Monday at Selectman’s meeting with a representative of TPG Capital. The representative of TPG Capital will have a PowerPoint. Suzie Barry indicated she wanted the presentation ahead of time, as well as the name of the person presenting. iii.LexMedia will have three HD channels on RCN (613, 614, and 629) with programming following the SD channels. iv.Discussion of RCN HD channels for LexMedia led to conversation with Verizon’s Jill Reddish about Verizon potentially making HD channels available, as well. v.RCN has arranged a meeting with Dorinda and the IT team to ensure a smooth transition. vi.Dorinda indicated that once things were up and stable the new location for the head-end has been working fine. vii.Tom indicated he has not forgotten about the license amendment. It’s low priority behind the license transfers. viii.Tom was unaware that a letter had gone out about replacement of older DVRs. He looked in to it and discovered they’re eager to retire the old DVRs to facilitate system-wide upgrades. 3.Selectmen’s Report – Suzie Barry a.Nothing at this time. 4.Chairman’s Report a.Ken introduced prospective new member, Rita Vachani. b.Ken reminded the committee that even if Rita is appointed, there will still be an opening. Ken said he thought it would be good for the committee if additional members would have a media (rather than technical) background. Dorinda also suggested that a business / contractual background would be helpful. 5.RCN Cable TV License Issues a.Ownership transfer. Dave Becker said that Dave Buczkowski will lead the hearing after the chair (Suzie Barry) opens the hearing. Introduction will handle circumstances, rules, etc. and then Dave will get in to the details about the buyer. Dave Becker reviewed the details of the sale and the plan for the hearing. Suzie indicated that they had allowed for 10 minutes for this on the agenda, and she was concerned that what Dave described was going to take well in excess of 10 minutes. Suzie asked that RCN and the stenographer plan to arrive by 6:45 PM. b.License renewal. Received formal notification in July. Dave Becker indicated that he planned to send letters to various town personnel, and that there would be a hearing in the spring to solicit public input. Dave Becker indicated that the license wouldn’t likely be signed until close to June 30, 2019 to ensure the license addressed any late-breaking technology changes. c.Hub relocation. RCN is required by the license to have a hub in Lexington, and they have moved the hub to Arlington. Dave Becker indicated that we want to amend the license to reflect the reality that the hub is no longer located in Lexington. Dave Becker indicated that we have asked Tom Steel to write a draft document. Dave Becker said that a hearing is also required for the hub relocation. Would likely be coordinated with the hearing for license renewal. 6.LexMedia Update – Florence DelSanto a.Staff is very happy – came back from an overnight retreat. “First time we’ve done something like that.” b.Had our first board meeting this week. No changes on the board at all. Chose a date for the annual meeting: November 17, 2016 at 6:30 PM (the same day and time as the next CAC meeting!). c.RCN has passed equipment needs to LexMedia for the two additional HD channels. d.“Got two big regional awards.” “Was hoping to get the national award.” e.“The challenge is to keep it growing.” “Keep the staff growing, keep them creative.” 7. Discussion of LexMedia Annual Report; Review and Approval of CAC Response a.Florence had not yet received the CAC response. Smita and Ken agreed they had sent it yesterday. b.Ken reviewed the response, including reviewing annual report against the contractual obligations. c.Ken asked Florence questions on the annual report, including questions about membership. Florence wasn’t sure how many “equipment members” are actually engaged. “Hoping that the MCM system can help us track that better.” d.Dorinda said that the town had a SurveyMonkey account that LexMedia may be able to use to survey members about their engagement. e.Florence indicated that they’re using all their time to get productions done, and that leaves less time for training – which may be one reason for the decrease in training numbers. f.Dave asked about integration with the high school. Florence indicated that the high school students are busy. g.Ken noted several changes to the CAC Response to the Annual Report. Smita moved to approve the CAC Response as amended, Dave Becker seconded. All voted in favor. 8. Review and VOTE to approve CAC contribution to Town Annual Report a.Smita moved to approve the CAC contribution to Town Annual Report, Dorinda seconded. All voted in favor. 9. Wireless services update a.Haven’t heard anything more from Verizon about the small-cell sites, but since no further approvals were required, they may be installed at any time. b.Work with the town to put the cell site on the existing police antenna tower is proceeding. Working on a one-year contract for that cell site. Meeting being scheduled with historic district commission for the additional structure. David George has determined that the application should go to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which means the application has been submitted to our committee for review. c.Permanent cell site. After the balloon test, the HDC indicated they preferred the site near the bike path. A RFP will be issued in the next month or two. 10. Town IT Update – Dorinda Goodman a.Dorinda reminded Ken to invite Tom Case, the new town CIO, to visit a CAC meeting. 11. New Member Application a.Ken introduced Rita Vachani. b.Rita Vachani described her experience living here in Lexington, and her professional career, including work for Verizon on the FIOS platform. She said she has retired and is looking for ways to get engaged in town activities. c.Tim asked what she was interested in helping with the committee with. She said she was willing to help with anything. d.Dorinda asked if Rita felt that she had a specialty. Rita indicated she considered systems, large program management, network capacity and performance her specialties. e.Dave motioned that Rita be appointed to the committee, Tim Zack seconded the motion. All voted in favor. Ken committed to communicate to the Board of Selectmen that our committee would like to see Rita appointed to the CAC. 12. Service provider payments to the Town a.Dave Becker indicated they have discovered a discrepancy in how Comcast has calculated monies withheld from their payments to the Town. Ken will ask Jane Lyman to meet with Dave Becker and Tim Zack to discuss further. 13. Wireless Applications a.An application arrived today. Nick and Ben to review. 14. Complaints a.Two complaints were addressed earlier in the meeting – one with a Verizon customer, one regarding RCN box swap. b.Nothing for September or October. 15. New business None 16. Adjournment Smita moved to adjourn, Ben seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 8:13 PM. Respectfully submitted, Nicholas A. Lauriat