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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018/03/14 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION MEETING OF MARCH 14, 2018 ST. LOUIS PARK CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Bruce Browning, David Dyer, Cindy Hoffman, Abe Levine and Nathan Munson MEMBERS ABSENT: Maren Anderson, Rolf Peterson STAFF PRESENT: Jacqueline Larson, Communications and Marketing Manager, Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator and John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: None 1. Call to order Chair Levine called the meeting to order at 6:10 p.m. 2. Roll Call Present at roll call were Commissioners Browning, Dyer, Hoffman, Levine and Munson. 3. Approval of Minutes for December 13, 2017. Commissioner Hoffman identified one typographical error. It was moved by Commissioner Browning, seconded by Commissioner Hoffman, to approve the minutes as amended. The motion passed 5-0. 4. Adoption of Agenda It was moved by Commissioner Hoffman, seconded by Commissioner Browning, to approve the agenda. The motion passed 5-0. 5. Public Comment - None 6. Reports & Discussion A. Comcast engineer to describe the DOCSIS 3.1 standard, advantages to customer and other Comcast technologies. This item was deferred to the next meeting at Comcast’s request. B. Franchise renewal overview & plans for 2018 Mr. Dunlap gave an overview of the process with a PowerPoint presentation. Franchise renewal is a three year process, and the franchises for Comcast and CenturyLink both expire in early 2021. Comcast has provided notice that they want to renew their franchise, but CenturyLink has not, as yet. Chair Levine has asked if the city has solicited other companies, like Verizon, to see if they would want a franchise in St. Louis Park. Mr. Dunlap said that the current franchises are non-exclusive, but we haven’t contacted other companies. Mr. Dunlap listed several common renewal activities, including past performance evaluation, franchise and technical reviews, community surveys or focus groups and PEG access reviews. The city intends to have Brian Grogan as the primary consultant. Ms. Larson said that a next step would be to set up a work session with the City Council to get feedback from them, and a Commission subcommittee would be helpful to prepare for that meeting and assist in answering questions. Commissioners Munson, Browning and Hoffman volunteered for the franchise renewal subcommittee, and Chair Levine said that since Commissioner Browning is on the Smart Cities subcommittee, to allow Commissioners Munson and Hoffman to serve on this one. C. Review annual report to Council & feedback from meeting with Council Mr. Dunlap and Commissioners Munson and Hoffman commended Commissioners Anderson and Browning for doing a great job updating the Council and other Commissions. Mr. Dunlap said that since some topics overlap Commissions, he’ll provide a monthly list of Commission meetings in case our members want to attend any of those meetings. Commissioner Hoffman asked if other Commissioners could possibly attend our meetings, and if there was a procedure to invite them. Mr. Dunlap agreed that was a good idea, and he’d contact other liaisons about it. Commissioner Browning said that Councilmember Rog provided a contact person to recruit a youth commissioner, which would be need to be appointed by the City Council. Ideally it would be a sophomore who’d be around for a while, as compared to a senior who would be gone in six months. Commissioner Dyer asked if there was any incentive that could be offered the students. Chair Levine said that when applying for college, this would be a good activity to add. D. Review Comcast compiled complaint log Commissioner Browning said that many complaints relate to costs, or billing, and that the billing system lags changes that have been made by Comcast staff. If that could be improved it would help the customer experience with customer service. Chair Levine said that it’s extremely difficult to build billing systems to accommodate all the requirements, so he likes that there’s an ombudsman to help customers. Commissioner Browning asked if gigabit service was now available city-wide? Mr. Dunlap said that was his understanding, and Commissioner Munson said he’d received notice that his home was eligible. Chair Levine said that anything over 150 megabits service uses the same equipment as the gigabit service, making it easy to upgrade to faster service. He said that those modems come with only two Ethernet ports, and so some customers may need an Ethernet switch if they are powering three or more devices. Commissioner Dyer said they cost about $20. Commissioner Browning said CenturyLink has two modems available, with either two or four Ethernet ports. E. Review CenturyLink fourth quarterly meeting memo and complaint log Commissioner Browning said there was a complaint at this event that a solicitor had offered a special rate on high speed service, but as it turns out, that service wasn’t available at that household. CenturyLink has installed more fiber in the city so more customers can get the 25 megabits per second service required to get Prism TV, but it’s still not available everywhere. He sees complaints about costs and billing for both CenturyLink and Comcast on Nextdoor. CenturyLink is still a new entrant, and the maps show they are making headway. Commissioner Dyer said that he respectfully disagrees. He’s seen Nextdoor complaints about CenturyLink bait and switch tactics, where a service was first offered and not available for the stated price, and that’s a concern. Chair Levine said that such complaints raise two points—that it’s not good for CenturyLink and not good for the city since we franchise them. Mr. Dunlap said city staff had received no CenturyLink complaints this quarter, and that CenturyLink and the Minnesota Attorney General’s office were negotiating a settlement to the bait and switch complaints. Mr. McHugh said that CenturyLink staff has said that all advertising by CenturyLink is nationally based, so the local staff has no influence. Commissioner Munson asked if there was a way to pull the solicitation permits, to determine if the solicitors were employees or contractors? And if there isn’t that level of detail in the permit process that there is an opportunity for improvement there. Mr. Dunlap said yes, that solicitors must register with the city so it could be checked. Ms. Larson said the city staff are administrators on Nextdoor, and can post messages to it, but we cannot see what’s going out on Nextdoor in the community. To assure privacy, and that we are not escalating beyond what a commenter prefers, that if you feel comfortable doing so, to suggest that they contact Reg and give the phone number, so we can speak directly with them. Commissioner Hoffman asked if it says to contact Reg with complaints on the CenturyLink bill, like it does on the Comcast bill? Commissioner Browning said he hadn’t noticed but will check on it. F. ParkTV marketing, programing & equipment report for 2017 Mr. Dunlap said that new terrific cameras have been ordered for the ParkTV production van that can use fiber optic cables which are lighter and easier to run. We have installed fiber optic cables in the Recreation Outdoor Center and later this year will install fiber at the high school stadium as well, which is really great for the many productions done there. ParkTV produced 315 shows last year and over 368 hours of new programming so we stay busy. Commissioner Browning complemented staff on an amazing amount of work. Commissioner Munson said there was a difference in the number of HD channels on CenturyLink and Comcast, and what’s the plan to address that? Mr. Dunlap said that the first HD channel on Comcast was last April, the result of negotiations related to the possible transfer to Great Land. The opportunity for the next HD channel would be one year later, and we’ve been verbally told they’d have to receive something to offer another HD channel. The ParkTV HD channel is 859, is programmed as a best of ParkTV channel and it’s important that we continue to brand that channel. Virtually all ParkTV productions have been in HD for years with John making the switch last fall. Chair Levine asked about marketing ParkTV? Ms. Larson said a University of Minnesota student approached us to do her capstone marketing project, so she’s doing a strategic marketing plan for ParkTV. One way she’s gathering information is through survey questions via Nextdoor, social media and the web site. G. Smart Cities subcommittee update Commissioner Browning gave a summary. The subcommittee was in the early stages, and that he was trying to track down the best definition, since it’s hard to define what smart cities really means. When we look at other cities that take advantage of internet access and Wi-Fi, larger cities are using it for parking and traffic control, which makes sense in San Diego or Los Angeles. We’ve talked about some things that we could do to start out simply, and some of this falls under other commissions, like having charging stations for electric cars. Ms. Larson said this was part of the kick starter project as part of the recently passed Climate Action Plan. Commissioner Browning said another example was replacing burned out street lights with LED’s, which are brighter and use less energy, or installing cameras on light poles. Other ideas are making internet service more affordable, and using the internet for medical services. Transportation came up in the Vision 3.0 process, how to make it easier for people to get around. Using your phone to find out when buses will arrive. Mr. McHugh said that some bus stops have upgraded signage that identifies the stop by number, and you can text that number to the MTC and it will reply with when the next bus will arrive. He said the city could add information about parks or buildings near that bus stop. Commissioner Hoffman said there was an app called OMG transit that would pinpoint where you were standing and tell you how long before your bus arrived. Commissioner Browning said that an app to show where snow plows were at a given time could be a possibility. Commissioner Munson said there is an environmental angle as well, to identify how much salt has been laid down, and whether more is needed, to reduce the amount of salt that goes into the wetlands. Commissioner Browning said that he didn’t know what percentage of people in the city are using the internet. He suspects that families with kids in schools are all over the internet, but is not so sure about older residents. Mr. McHugh said that a senior that used the Senior Video Club today goes to the library to use the internet because he doesn’t have a computer at home. Commissioner Dyer raised the issue of pedestrian traffic on Belt Line and Wooddale. Commissioner Browning said the city plans to widen the Wooddale Avenue bridge this year. Ms. Larson said that she thinks the next step for the subcommittee will be to meet with city staff because the city is already doing some of the things that have been discussed. Chair Levine requested that Mr. Dunlap set up the meetings. Commissioner Munson said he was at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit last week in Texas and there was a lot of great information on IOT (Internet of things) that he could share. Commissioner Browning said that in the last CenturyLink meeting he found out that the city of Richfield is completely wired with fiber to the home, thanks to a series of large street projects. Chair Levine said that St. Louis Park missed that opportunity when they were digging up piping a few years ago, and nobody put fiber in. 7. Communications from the Chair, Commissioners and City staff Mr. McHugh distributed the latest list of TV 15 premiers. He said that Commissioners all receive ParkTV schedules, and that soon he’ll include a streaming link for ParkTV at archive.org, which has been independently archiving programming uploaded to You Tube, and they now have 1600 ParkTV programs. You can you stream or download them there, and the videos are a bit more compressed there than on You Tube. He also mentioned the My St. Louis Park app has a ParkTV icon that brings you to the latest program uploaded to the You Tube page. Ms. Larson said that an intern in the Propel program selected ParkTV for his internship, that he’s a St. Louis Park resident that goes to school in Hopkins, and after working with Jermaine and Reg, his final project will be a PSA for the Police Department. 8. Adjournment Chair Levine adjourned the meeting at 7:08 p.m. Respectfully submitted by: Reg Dunlap Civic TV Coordinator