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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005/08/04 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION MEETING OF AUGUST 4, 2005 ST. LOUIS PARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Rick Dworsky, Dale Hartman, Ken Huiras, Bob Jacobson and Rolf Peterson MEMBERS ABSENT: Bruce Browning and Mary Jean Overend STAFF PRESENT: Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator; John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Boehler, Time Warner Cable, Manager, Customer Operations; Lance Leupold, Time Warner Cable; Kathi Donnelly-Cohen, Comcast 1. Call to Order Chair Dworsky called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. 2. Roll Call Present at roll call were Commissioners Dworsky, Hartman, Huiras, Jacobson and Peterson. 3. Approval of Minutes for May 5, 2005 It was moved by Commissioner Huiras, seconded by Commissioner Jacobson, to approve the minutes of May 5, 2005 as presented. The motion passed 4-0-1, with Commissioner Peterson abstaining. 4. Adoption of Agenda Commissioner Huiras requested to add a wireless update to the agenda. Mr. McHugh indicated there was no new information, but would be more at the end of the month. It was moved by Commissioner Huiras, seconded by Commissioner Peterson, to approve the agenda as presented. The motion passed 5-0. 5. Public Comment - None 6. New Business A. Transfer of Cable System from Time Warner to Comcast Mr. Dunlap reported City Council will hold a public hearing on August 15th pertaining to the cable system transfer, and Time Warner and Comcast representatives will be present. He expects a report about September 1 from Brian Grogan of Moss and Barnett, the attorney that has been contracted to study Comcast’s FCC Form 394. Mr. Grogan is investigating Comcast’s legal, technical and financial abilities to operate the cable system, and sent a letter requesting information from Comcast on July 14, 2005. Mr. Dunlap shared several pertinent Comcast’s responses, received in a letter from Sheila Willard on August 1, 2005. Mr. Grogan asked, “Is Comcast proposing or will Comcast undertake any technical changes in the system?” and “Does Comcast have plans to consolidate the headend facilities presently operated by Time Warner into Comcast’s headend facilities?” Mr. Dunlap said Comcast is based in St. Paul and has a very sophisticated headend. The response was, “There are no current plans to make any technical changes in the system, and no such changes are required as a direct result of the Transaction. However, Comcast reserves the right to consider and make such changes as customer and company needs dictate.” Throughout the letter, the prudent response was that they reserve the right to have the transaction close and then make any adjustments needed over time. There is not a lot of specific detail they can share at this point. Mr. Grogan also asked, “Will Comcast make any changes to the programming line-up?” The response, “There are no current plans to make any changes to the programming line-up.” Mr. Dunlap said that at some future point line-ups would probably be realigned when it became feasible. Commissioner Huiras asked if there was an analysis of the differences in programming between Comcast’s offerings and Time Warner’s? Mr. Dunlap replied no. Commissioner Huiras asked about cost? Mr. Dunlap replied they hadn’t done that yet either. He could prepare a report for the Commission comparing cost and line-up. Mr. Dunlap referenced question nine, pertaining to the Adelphia Bankruptcy. The reason for this transfer was because Adelphia was being purchased by Time Warner. Adelphia is a big company with many systems in the Pennsylvania area and in Los Angeles, among other places. Also, Comcast has owned 25% of Time Warner for a long time and has been looking for a way to divest that ownership, which will be resolved in the overall transaction. Since Comcast is larger than Time Warner in the Minnesota district, all of Time Warner’s Minnesota properties, including St. Louis Park, would be transferred to Comcast. Comcast will then operate the vast majority of the systems in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Point nine in Mr. Grogan’s letter said, “That the City is aware that Time Warner and Comcast and/or its affiliates are jointly pursuing acquisition of over five million customers presently served by Adelphia Communications…subject to approval by the bankruptcy court. Please describe whether the transaction involving acquisition of the Adelphia subscribers will in any way impact the proposed transfer of the cable systems serving the City.” The Comcast response said, “The Redemption Agreement under which the City’s franchise is being transferred to Comcast does contemplate that Comcast and Time Warner might not go forward with the Redemption Agreement if the Adelphia transaction does not take place. The “Conditions Precedent” provisions in Sections 8.1 and 8.2 of the Agreement allow both companies to waive that requirement and go forward with the Redemption if they so choose.” He would like to hear if there was anything further that the representatives could tell them. Kathi Donnelly-Cohen, Comcast’s Director of Government Relations, said that while the Federal government is reviewing the overall transaction it is under Hart/Scott/Rodino anti-trust review, which doesn’t allow Comcast to talk about how they would go forward and operate. So they can’t talk about headend consolidations of equipment or channel line-ups until the review was done. Mr. Dunlap asked if the Adelphia transaction was moving along smoothly? Ms. Donnelly-Cohen replied rather than wait for each of the individual steps to be approved before they went to the next one, they were trying to do everything simultaneously. The bankruptcy court would probably give its decision and approval by the end of the year. Commissioner Jacobson asked if there was a final date for the City to approve the transfer? Mr. Dunlap replied yes, by Federal law, the City has to act by October 15th or the transfer is deemed approved. B. Review Time Warner Annual Filings Chair Dworsky noticed in the annual filings, it was still under the Nortel Cable Associates franchise. Would that stay the same when Comcast absorbs it or would it be something different? Mr. Dunlap replied he was unsure if as part of this transfer the name of “Nortel Cable Associates doing business as” would go away or not. Mr. Dunlap indicated a shorter version of the financial statement was included with the packets. He noted that the City Finance Director reviewed the information last year and recommended updating it over the years as a good tool for watching a couple of key areas financially. He was not sure they would have the same break out in the future. In 2002, “Expenses: selling, general administration” was $4.5 million and in 2003, it doubled to over $9.5 million. Last year it was a similar number, $9.7 million. He would follow up and find out if there was an explanation why that item increased so much after being a relatively steady number of about $4 million in 1998 and eventually rising to $4.5 million in 2002. Commissioner Jacobson stated the report was well done. C. Time Warner Customer service update Chair Dworsky stated there were eleven complaints, two having to do with delay of the shuttle launch, which was beyond their control, and a couple dealing with Roadrunner. It was a pretty good month. Mr. Dunlap indicated he wanted to take this opportunity for the Commission to ask questions of Mr. Boehler regarding complaints and customer service. Commissioner Peterson asked if they relocated to the building at Crosstown and Hwy 169? Mark Boehler replied they had a new facility with administration, customer operations, the technical group and design staff. Chair Dworsky stated looking at the past year, a lot of complaints had to do with cable being exposed in front of people’s homes and yards. Had anything been done to coordinate that better? Mr. Boehler replied they have made improvements in the processes they use. If cable is installed during winter months, they lay the cable on the ground until spring, when they can schedule to have the cable buried. They have improved how they do that and who they get as a contractors to do it. They have a “pending pool” to gauge how they are doing. Chair Dworsky asked at what point after the winter should the involved citizen be involved and call? Mr. Boehler replied anything laid on the ground is tagged on the work order and a pending work order is initiated in their system. They are aware it is there and they need it buried. They cannot determine when the frost will be gone and when they can bury cable without hurting people’s lawns, so it was hard to say an exact date. If they are getting ready to mow their lawn and the cable is still there, they should call. Commissioner Jacobson commented be was glad they were looking at that process and improving it. Mr. Boehler stated they spend money on their customer operations and the building was a nice move for them and they feel it would help provide better service. They spend a lot of money on infrastructure and were introducing a couple new things. ECHO (Every Customer Has an Opinion), when a customer calls in, will ask if they wanted to take a survey to rate the service being provided by a customer service representative. The system will call a customer back after their call and ask a number of questions. They can go back and target a representative and show them the customer perception of how a call went. They were also spending a lot of time and money on their web site. Customers can view and pay their bills. Mr. McHugh indicated if someone goes to their web site, they can only get generic information about pricing for services. Is that scheduled to change so someone can find out how much it costs to subscribe to different services? Mr. Boehler replied yes, he didn’t have a date it was scheduled to be available. Commissioner Huiras asked if all of their facilities had moved to Eden Prairie from north Minneapolis? Mr. Boehler responded no, they traded out some things. It made sense to have some of the technicians housed out of Minneapolis. All of the admin and customer service functions were in Minnetonka. D. Update on Time Warner Cable franchise fee review Mr. Dunlap indicated there was nothing more to add, except that they expected to have the report by September 1st. E. Publicity brainstorming for cable access channels Mr. Dunlap stated this was on the work plan. They have a studio available and Commissioners expressed an interest to better publicize it. Commissioners can tell staff what they should be promoting. Call or email with suggestions. Commissioner Huiras asked if a sub committee was put together at the last meeting? Mr. Dunlap replied yes, there was a sub committee to work on the idea of using the high school studio. He believed Commissioners Browning, Peterson and Jacobson were on it. Chair Dworsky asked if there was a report from the sub committee? Commissioner Jacobson responded they hadn’t met yet. Mr. McHugh indicated staff has a meeting with the school district August 10th to talk about getting concept approval from the school board for a community use for their studio. It would have certain limitations, so he was exploring possible simultaneous alternatives to the school studio that would be available when school is in session or on Saturday’s when school buildings are closed. Chair Dworsky asked when they view channels 17 and 15, can they use a tag line requesting comments on the channel? That might give them the public comment they need to improve the channels. Mr. Dunlap responded one of the messages that is part of the cycle, is for questions, comments or complaints. His name and contact information is provided. His name and contact information is also listed for unresolved complaints on bills. 7. Old Business A. Franchise Renewal Update Mr. McHugh stated they met with Time Warner the previous day and had given them a City response to the franchise mark-up that they had been given. The franchise mark-up Time Warner gave the City included deletion of many substantive things without proposing alternatives. The City inserted the alternatives, sometimes reflecting what had been agreed to verbally in their previous meetings with Time Warner. They were dealing with a new Time Warner legal counsel who wasn’t present at the meetings and may not have reviewed everything that transpired over the last two years with Time Warner staff. Some of it was news to him and some he had expected them to come up with a proposal. Time Warner is going to respond to the version of the franchise that the city gave them. They hoped to have a response by Wednesday and they would see how close they were to what the City proposed. There is a public hearing concerning the franchise renewal on Monday, August 15th. They were unable to have a meeting prior to the public hearing to discuss changes. Commissioner Huiras asked if any more of the bullet points had been resolved? Mr. McHugh replied there had been clearly worded alternatives and proposals that they expect Time Warner to respond to. There had been very few things they had rejected out of hand. Support for local origination at their last meeting was not rejected out of hand. The proposed language for equipping the local channels wasn’t rejected. They were going to come up with a counter proposal. They would characterize the meetings as quite productive and they would know how productive when they received a written response. Commissioner Huiras asked if there would be another extension? Mr. McHugh replied there were a couple of scenarios, one was an extension to October 15th or possibly the end of the year. They would go with whatever legal counsel suggested. At this point, no decision had been made for an extension, a stand still agreement or no action on an extension. The current franchise, with the six-month extension, expires at the end of this month. Commissioner Huiras asked if Comcast required a franchise agreement in place when a transfer takes place? Ms. Donnelly-Cohen replied no. There are a number of franchises that are either under renewal, had been extended or in some cases they had already expired. Legally, Time Warner was serving them under the terms and conditions of the existing franchise. What they have said in their documents is that they would abide by the terms and conditions in the franchise even if it expired. Commissioner Huiras asked if Time Warner needed to go to Comcast if there was a major change in the franchise? Ms. Donnelly-Cohen responded her understanding was if were are major issues, they would like to be part of the discussion. Commissioner Huiras assumed nothing at this point had been that major? Ms. Donnelly- Cohen replied correct. Commissioner Jacobson asked if there was anything in the franchise defining local origination, what it is, and if both parties, the City and the Cable company understand what the differences are if there are any? He was unsure they were all on the same page. The document he was going through (the annual report) had quite a few incidents of LO used and there was not a clear definition. The report also included an inventory of what was at the studio. He had been at the studio recently and couldn’t find many of items on the list. The list did not seem to be accurate. Mr. Leupold responded his understanding was that the list of the St. Louis park inventory was accurate for the studio and 95-99% accurate for the van. They had the consultant working with the city on a needs assessment look at both facilities and it was his understanding all of the items were found in the studio. There were also some additions to the van, which they would report to the City. There should be more items than were reported on the inventory. Commissioner Jacobson asked there be a follow through to assure the list was accurate. Mr. McHugh said he had an appointment to use the studio this month and would review the list. Regarding the description of LO, in the current franchise it is described as community programming that is done by the company. The City proposes to continue to do that type of programming since Time Warner wanted it to be discretional going forward in the new franchise. Federal law describes it as programming originated by the company. State law describes it as programming by any number of entities, including cites and cable companies. Commissioner Jacobson indicated the section about scheduling and operations and supervision brought this up. It said their had to be an LO certified person on duty and he was confused about that and how they were certified. Mr. McHugh replied the local origination supervisor, Leslie Ferrell, is there to help with use of the facility. When they have a studio reservation she is there before hand to turn on equipment and makes sure the signals for production are going where they need to go. If something is not working, she tries to remedy it. As far as using the studio or the van, Time Warner has to be able to confirm that those people have received adequate training. Chair Dworsky asked when one refers to LO, is that a pool of people or a particular individual? Mr. McHugh replied it meant Time Warner’s Local Origination Department, with an office in Fridley and several employees. B. Emergency Alert System Update Mr. Dunlap reported he tested the analog system and the test went well. Last month they tested the digital override system and it worked satisfactorily. Commissioner Huiras asked if the time delay had been taken care of? The time Mr. Dunlap put it in, to the time it actually came out on a digital channel was quite extensive. Mr. Dunlap responded they hadn’t done another test and would monitor the delay on the next test. Commissioner Huiras asked if there was a regular test scheduled the first Wednesday of the month? Mr. Dunlap replied he had been waiting to get everything working smoothly before having the regular testing done by the dispatch staff. Commissioner Huiras indicated the test was visible on the digital channels. The only problem was that it was delayed 17-18 minutes from the time entered to when it came over on the channel, which needs to be addressed. Chair Dworsky asked if there is a delay on the analog side? Mr. Dunlap replied that it’s brief, a couple of seconds after it is activated. Mr. Leupold stated that was the first he heard of a delay. There are some considerable obstacles they were working around to provide digital capability. He would report this issue back to the head end staff to see if they can work around that. Chair Dworsky asked for a report back to the Commission prior to October 6th. 8. Reports A. Complaints – Complaints covered in Time Warner Customer service update. 9. Communication from the Chair Mr. Leupold stated they appreciate the customers and he thanked them. They look forward to serving the customers and continuing to provide excellent service and comparable service to what they have with Comcast in every respect. Commissioner Jacobson reported that there was a special meeting regarding WiFi and health issues. He did searched for “WiFi and health” on Google and had 2,490,000 pages of information. It was a big subject. He surveyed some of the first listings and there was one at the top talking about an Illinois school district being sued over the WiFi health potential and they found nothing dangerous after the case was settled. The health issues are evidently not as big of a deal as people think. The strength of the signal is not particularly strong in this case. This is something that would be an ongoing issue. He intended to research this further. 10. Communications from City Staff Mr. Dunlap indicated that there is a City Council meeting on August 15th at 7:30, where there will be a public hearing to transfer the franchise from Time Warner to Comcast and also for the renewal of the Time Warner franchise. There will be a brief staff report and then it will be open to the public. The system will basically operate as it has been. In St. Paul Comcast offers digital phone, high definition, DVR, high speed internet, all of the same services that are comparable to Time Warner. Commissioner Huiras asked if someone uses Roadrunner now, will they have to switch to a new email address? Ms. Donnelly-Cohen replied she could not answer it now. Time Warner customers will become Comcast customers, and there will be a lot of Comcast customers in Los Angeles who will become Time Warner customers. When AT&T Broadband changed, they had to change the domain names. This was different and would need to be worked out, but they could not say exactly what they would do. 11. Adjournment Commissioner Huiras made a motion, Commission Jacobson seconded to adjourn at 7:50. The motion passed 5-0. Respectfully submitted by: Amy L. Stegora-Peterson Recording Secretary