03-25-2013 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, March 11, 2013 7:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 of 27 (4. LMCC UPDATE, Continued) Joe Huber, Executive Committee, noted he has been recently appointed to the LMCC Board. Mediacom, in attempting to separate the cities from the LMCC, is a validation of the services that they provide to the constituent cities. One of the absolute top proprieties for the LMCC is to negotiate for further build-out of services at no cost to the cities. Mediacom has been making money, which is a good thing, but it should not come at the expense of the cities. The second goal of the negotiations is improved customer service. Three of the volunteer executive committee members are computer communications industry executives with over 75 total years of experience. Even though none of those members are from Orono, it does show some diversity. Huber noted consolidated services are not new to the area and that he can remember reading in the newspaper a couple of months ago about how another city went through negotiations with Orono for police services and that in his view the cities are stronger if they band together. Cities the size of Orono cannot provide these types of services at the cost that are currently charged. Huber stated Orono is a valuable member of the LMCC. In negotiations, the LMCC is looking far ahead into the future and has included terms in the agreement so that if, for some reason local franchises no longer continue, the City knows what happens to the money if they agree to some type of debt or money payment. Koenecke indicated she did provide some documents tonight as additional information. One is a program report from the production manager to provide some insight into the programming. The other document is a summary completed by a consultant hired by the LMCC and encompasses both a community needs assessment and a technical assessment. The needs assessment included a survey of 300 people with cable and 300 people without cable. It is a statistically valid survey which was used to justify some of the priorities and key issues that in their view the LMCC should be looking at. The LMCC then took both the technical assessment and needs assessment and studied them to determine the priority list. The first priority identified by the consultants was extending cable to areas currently not being served and the second priority was customer service. As far as the LMCC’s priority list goes, it was developed through focus groups and the survey. The LMCC, when they go into negotiations, has to substantiate what they are asking for, which was the purpose of compiling the reports. Both reports were submitted to the LMCC in their entirety but the information provided to the Council may not include some of the raw data that was compiled for the technical report but was summarized. Koenecke indicated she has been invited to tonight’s meeting to go over the LMCC’s priority list. Koenecke stated it is her understanding the city administrator received it prior to the meeting and then provided that information to the City Council. In addition, the City Council did receive some information from Mediacom but that she does not plan to analyze that report. If the City Council has questions as to how the information might relate to Mediacom, she would be happy to answer those questions. The priorities list has been approved by the executive committee. Item #02 - CC Agenda - 03/25/2013 Approval of Council Minutes 03/11/2013 [Page 2 of 27]