09-08-2014 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 8, 2014 7:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 24 of 25 (15. MEDIACOM UPDATE, Continued) Loftus stated one loss with the agreement is the LMCC programming. Loftus stated the LMCC sent a letter to all of the five communities that left the LMCC notifying the residents that the programming ended and suggesting the residents call their various city halls with comments regarding the change. Loftus indicated Orono has received two comments, one written and the other being a caller who was encouraged by Staff to put his comments into writing. The caller thought the fee should be lowered if the City was not going to provide that public access. Loftus stated the City is providing that access but it is in a different format and is provided online. Loftus stated one question the Council has not made a decision on is whether the City should provide a channel in addition to the web streaming. Staff felt it would be about an $18,000 equipment investment and a decent amount of Staff time to program a channel, which is something the City Council should consider at some point in the future. Loftus stated there are also other features of the Granicus software that have not been fully explored. Loftus stated in her view the City has accomplished a lot of what the Council set out to do and that she would welcome any comments on how the Council would like to proceed. McMillan thanked Staff for their work on the build-out. McMillan stated the City has developed a very comprehensive website with the availability of the agenda and attachments, the minutes, the video, and the MP4 that can be downloaded. McMillan stated in her view the Granicus system interfaces very well and that there have been 16,000 page visits on the Granicus page. Printup stated the ability to pull the reports is very nice. Bremer stated she utilizes the website to access the reports and that she appreciates the ability to go paperless. McMillan stated she would like to discuss in the next month or two a possible fee reduction or the possible elimination of the monthly PEG fee given the lack of interest in a public channel. Levang stated she would agree with a fee reduction if there is not going to be a public channel. McMillan stated a couple of years ago the Council discussed Cloud backup, which was restricted by the lack of fiber, and that perhaps in the near future the Council could also revisit that issue. Loftus stated to her knowledge the PEG fees are less than 25 percent of what the City receives and that the City might be able to accommodate that reduced revenue. Loftus noted the City only collects five percent on packages available on cable. Loftus stated the future of cable might be going over the internet and that in the future the City will likely see these cable revenues go down rather than up. Loftus stated in the past few years the amount received has declined.