April 8th meeting minutes. Topics covered include: Public Comment, Interim Department of Information Technology Director, Comcast cable refranchising, Hacking events, Seattle Channel programs and diversity, and committee reports on broadband, tech matching fund grants, Get Online for jobs education, privacy, and public engagement, status of board positions.
These resources were mentioned in the meeting:
- Hack to End Homelessness, May 1-4 (Main hack May 3-4)
- Hack for Change Day at City Hall (Code for Seattle) , May 31st
- Seattle Channel Diversity report (See also Channel web statistics posted after and in response to the meeting)
- Where to submit program ideas to the Seattle Channel: http://seattlechannel.org/getinvolved/contact_us.htm
- Comcast franchise renewal public meetings and online survey
- Get Engaged young adult city boards and commissions application (Apply by May 12th) See more
This meeting was held:
April 8th, 2014, 6–8 PM, Seattle Municipal Tower: 700 – Fifth Avenue
Attending
Board Members: Dana Lewis, Nourisha Wells, Brian Hsi, Phillip Duggan, Beryl Fernandes, Rob Dolin, Daniel Hoang, Stacey Wedlake
Public: Jose Vasquez (Latino Community Fund), Nora Erwin-Stuart (Senior Services), Garrett Cobarr, Robert Donahue, Webster Olson (Spectrum Networks), Jordan Raisher, Joneil Custodio, Tee Sheffer, Chris Weber, John Madamba (Filipino Community Center, Free Geeks), Ann Summy, Ian Shafer (Yabbly), Dan Stiefel, Robert Donahue, Ethan Phelps-Goodman, Richard Hecht, Nancy Sherman, Phil Mocek, Jan Bultman (Seattle Privacy), Dorene Cornwell (STAR), Ethan Phellps-Goodman (Hack to End Homelessness)
Staff: Sabra Schneider, David Keyes, John Giamberso, Tony Perez
The meeting was chaired by Dana Lewis
April agenda and March minutes were approved.
Sabra Schneider: She has been appointed as Interim Director of the Department of Information Technology (DoIT). She is expecting this to be a temporary assignment as the Mayor looks for a replacement. She does not know the Mayor’s plan for filling this, but will send out the position if/when it gets posted. The past director, Erin Devoto, has taken a position at the City of Kirkland.
Hack for Change day will be at City Hall on May 31st. See http://www.meetup.com/Code-for-Seattle/events/175917132/ Seth Vincent from Code for Seattle and others are organizing this.
Public Comment:
Ethan Phellps-Goodman – He encouraged participation in the Hack to End Homelessness May 1-4, most events May 2-4. See http://www.hacktoendhomelessness.com/
They are partnering with a range of homeless advocacy and service organizations.
They’ve reached out to Ada, the code academy, UW Tech policy and statistics lab.
They especially need graphic designers for the event.
Rob: SODAPop and Teals are good distribution outlets.
Seattle Channel update: John Giamberso
The diversity report has been posted to the CTTAB Blog (LINK)
John described the Channel mission and showed and described a number of their programs. See http://seattlechannel.org/
The programs described and clips shown included: Video voters guide, City Inside/Out program on Cannibis, Arts Zone, Seattle News Now, Civic Cocktail, Seattle Voices with Eric Liu, Ask the Mayor
The Channel is shown on high definition channel 321 and regular channel 21.
City Inside/Out goes in depth on issues and topics
Nancy Guppy hosts of Arts Zone
Seattle News Now is a 5 minute show of condensed news.
Civic Cocktail is a drink and talk show about civics, run with City Club and Tom Douglas.
Next month will be the Governor Inslee.
Seattle Voices with Eric Liu is a Charlie Rose type show in-depth conversation with Seattle leaders and personalities.
Ask the Mayor is now a quarterly show in different locations. Next one in the south end of the city at New Holly. The first 20 minutes are with Mayor and host Brian Callanan, then with other department staff and audience participation.
Beryl: Is the Video Voters Guide text and speakers?
John: It’s both graphics and speakers, with an introduction to ballot measures and then speakers from different sides of the topic. They try to track the print versions of the video voters guide.
Stacey: It’s been really useful because you get to see and hear from all the candidate.
John: They index the programs so that you can go directly to a candidate.
Daniels: Do you track viewership #’s
John: We have data from indicators and specific program use from web site use.
What is the typical use?
John: 40-60,000 viewers over about a 10 day pre-vote period.
Do you see the geographic spread of viewers?
John: They haven’t looked at this detail yet.
Have you had any requests for closed captioning or other accessibility?
John: We’ve been tracking this. City Council is looking at closed captioning of meetings. It’s very expensive.
FCC has exception for closed captioning if your revenue is under a certain amount, but the City would still like to do it.
Looking at CART system to take a video feed from that and insert it into Council meetings. Used to closed caption video voters but it was cut due to budget.
Two methods: Voice recognition and manual typing. Voice recognition is still not accurate, especially with multiple speakers.
Seattle Channel Diversity report: See http://cttab.seattle.gov/2014/04/07/seattle-channel-diversity-report-2013/
Our objective is to match the demographics of the City with our programming. We count a program in the numbers if it’s relevant to the population (people of color) and if someone of color appears on the show.
Beryl: How do you know it’s of interest?
John: This is done by staff and program committee. Includes identification from programs when people mention a topic of particular interest.
Daniel: How do we let you know of community events that may be of interest?
Send a note from SeattleChannel.org web site: http://seattlechannel.org/getinvolved/contact_us.htm
How do you define diversity?
John: We go by defined ethnic groups in city census demographics
Beryl: Do you notify the communities of airing?
John: Have been doing some preview screenings back in the community as one way to build the viewership.
? Are you using any other means like direct mailing?
John: Putting together a marketing plan. Use social media to market.
David: Embed coding is also available so people can put their programs into their web sites.
Public: Would be good for the Channel to advertise that the programs are in the public domain. This could help with marketing and use.
John: We don’t advertise this currently, but all programs are in the public domain.
Sabra: We make sharing easy.
John: Programs are archived for a number of years. This is an interesting idea to advertise the public domain.
Comcast Cable Franchising – Tony Perez
See more at Seattle.gov/cable/franchiserenewal.htm. See renewal information handout.
We are doing a community survey. City expects to begin negotiations this fall.
We have right to negotiate because of our authority granted by FCC to manage rights of way.
We broaden the scope to include Internet.
CTTAB should hear from Council when they will hold additional meetings.
Having structured conversations with some groups, such as tenants, seniors, disabled, youth, apartment owners.
Also sending via direct mail to people that have contacted us with customer questions or concerns.
There will be a phone survey with Pacific Marketing at the beginning of May.
The online survey runs through May 31st
About 6900 have taken the survey so far.
We will also be looking at Comcast compliance with the franchise, including a technical audit and financial audit. These all get compiled into an assessment report before we begin negotiations.
Other Office of Cable Communications Updates:
They are working with Seattle Community Media, the public access station, on a contract renewal. The current one ends in June.
Also later this summer will submit legislation concerning revisions to the cable code, includes privacy, consumer protections, procedures for granting franchise.
There will be public hearings on this.
Rob: Does code include Internet or just cable tv
Tony: The overall focus is cable, but we consider consumer protection interests in their services include Internet.
We would not be able to include Net Neutrality, peering and interconnection agreements since we cannot trump the FCC authority on this.
Public attendee: Does it include fiber?
Tony – yes, there is is a fiber/coax cable mix.
Beryl: Does Comcast do their own survey?
Tony: They are in some communities. Our advantage is that courts give deference to elected officials’ view of what constitutes needs and interests of their communities.
Public attendee: Will the renegotiation be also opening it to other providers?
Tony: Anyone can request a franchise to provide services at anytime. We don’t restrict it; it’s just the enormous cost of building a network that has limited building of additional franchises.
We could look at other proposals, but they would still have to obtain a franchise from us.
Daniel Hoang: Can we share some pictures or video of the technical audit?
Tony: Yes, this will done.
CTTAB Operating Rules
To add additional roles as needed to assist the Chair and Vice Chair
There was an initial draft amendment made by Nourisha,
Draft motion: I move to add a second vice chair to the CTTAB to assist the chair and vice chair with the on-going duties of the board. This vice chair shall be voted upon during the annual election of board officers.
Dana substituted this wording to be more general.
Motion: I move to add additional roles as needed to assist the chair and vice chair with the on-going duties of the board. These roles shall be voted upon during the annual election of board officers. This vice chair shall be voted upon during the annual election of board officers.
A motion to approve the amendment as stated by Dana was made by Stacey and Rob seconded.
*The motion was approved by the Board.
Break
Committee updates:
Broadband and Cable Committee – Daniel Hoang
The committee met and next meeting will be April 28th. (See the seattle.gov/CTTAB calendar for details)
They are staying as one committee, but will use hashtags to categorize the topics:
- #cable
- #fiber
- #wireless
- #utility – discussion of broadband as a utility
Brian – There have been articles on CenturyLink and Directors Rule. The city/stakeholder group has been meeting. There is pending legislation in the works that should ameliorate some of the issues. It’s a long process. One issue that surfaced is that there are inconsistencies with other rules and ordinances that need to be resolved.
Technology Matching Fund grant committee – Stacey Wedlake
The committee members have been reviewing applications.
David acknowledged participation on committee of additional new community members: Myranda Miler and Joneil Custodio.
The committee recommendations will be at the May meeting for a vote.
Rob encouraged people to come to the reception for grantees that will be held in July. It’s a great opportunity to meet those doing the work on digital literacy and access.
Beryl: Do you look at diversity of management team?
Stacey: Not specifically, but we do look at who and how they will be served. A lot of projects are initiated by groups working closely in the community.
Dana: Application does ask for number of people in the organization.
Stacey: We do keep in mind that from smaller organizations that they are less likely to have professional grantwriters.
Beryl: Would like to put in a plug that we keep in mind the need to build capacity in the organizations themselves.
Stacey: We do see groups that request money for hardware the first year and then the next year they build on that.
Beryl would be willing to help if the Board does something more with the capacity building.
Public Engagement (PE) : Dana Lewis
Committee notes are posted on the blog.
The PE group will help host forums. Topics based on feedback. First one will be about the technology adoption survey (indicators), likely in June.
Streaming live meetings: their recommendation is to use Office365 when it’s implemented.
Public Engagement is not just during the meeting, but also will be facilitating additional input at other times.
They haven’t planned a standing meeting.
David: Polled the attendees: For the forum on the tech survey results, would people prefer to hold it downtown or out of downtown? A moderate majority said out of downtown, though it was also requested that it be accessible by public transit.
Questions was asked whether the forum goal to start a dialogue or get specific feedback to provide recommendations?
David: We’ll want to talk in committee, but first intention is probably to share info so people can use it in their marketing/outreach efforts and to check the recommendations also.
Dana: need to be deliberate in structuring it and determine what we will take back from ti for action by CTTAB or the City.
Privacy committee: Beryl Fernandes
Committee participants were: Garrett Cobarr, Phil Mocek, Jan Bultman
We had a comprehensive list of generic privacy issues and looked at which to address.
We’re looking at what’s within the city’s control, what’s doable and can be done within a finite time?
Phillip: Privacy covers almost every topic. Eg Google analytics
Jen: There is tons of potential from these issues.
Garret: The list came from the Privacy Council.
Rob: recommending using lists.
Dana: Blog is more public and more search friendly.
Comment: Look at whether to use single list.
Rob: In his research the best option is a public notice listserv with open subscription lists.
There was some discussion of using the listservs or the blog.
Dana: Blogs are more search friendly and open.
Rob: More use email than blogs. Using open archive email is the more accessible content because not as many use RSS.
Dana: Request to committee chairs to be sure to post meeting notes on the blog.
CTTAB notice list is one way list right now.
Dan – how do we direct something we think is of interest to a larger group?
Rob: Reach out to committee chair to get something out.
David: If there are a number of resources, maybe the committee could summarize resources and send a digest.
Committees
Discussion of Standing and Ad Hoc (also refer to March minutes) – In short, both are active committees, this definition is still evolving, but the Standing Committees are likely to continue as a campaign.
Rob wants to be on Get Online and EGov committees
Garrett – Is there a short summary of what each committee does?
David: There are some from last year’s committees, but this was a charge for the 2014 committees to do.
*Committee Chairs: Please send David a short description of your committee.
David: To new applicants for CTTAB. He has some of your committee interests, but otherwise, please let him know what you are interested in.
NEW CTTAB POSITIONS
The YMCA and City have just started recruiting for the Get Engaged young adult position.
Dana: We want to encourage diverse applications. Please help get the word out.
David: We got 23 applications for the one current open Mayor position and committees. We have been asking what committees people are interested in. He will send these to the chairs of committees.
David is meeting with the Mayor’s new Boards and Commissions staff. He expects that they will pick a few people to interview. Not sure of timing yet. We’ll use the broad criteria that we have as a guide.
Looking at skill areas, background, age, geography and community diversity.
Hope to have someone for the May meeting, but this could be challenging given how much the Mayor’s staff has on their plate.
David will send a list of the applicants and put it up on a drive for people to comment on.
Beryl offered to sit on the interview panel.
Rob: There will be at least 3 additional positions that will be opening up in January.
Dana: That’s the end of the agenda, Thanks to everyone for coming in person and on the phone!