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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB Study Session 2012-10-09 Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado, October 9, 2012 Minutes of a Regular meeting of the TOWN BOARD STUDY SESSION of the Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado. Meeting held at Town Hall in Rooms 202/203 in said Town of Estes Park on the 9th day of October, 2012. Board: Mayor Pinkham, Mayor Pro Tem Blackhurst, Trustees Elrod, Ericson, Koenig, Norris, and Phipps Attending: Mayor Pinkham, Mayor Pro Tem Blackhurst, Trustees Elrod, Ericson, Koenig, Norris, and Phipps Also Attending: Assistant Town Administrator Richardson, Dir. Bergsten, Finance Officer McFarland, Manager Winslow, Supt. Fraundorf, Town Attorney White, and Deputy Town Clerk Deats Absent: Town Administrator Lancaster Mayor Pinkham called the meeting to order at 4:30 p.m. BAJA FRANCHISE AGREEMENT. Attorney White said that the Town has contracted with the firm of River Oaks Communication Corp. to provide guidance in reaching an agreement with Baja Broadband in regard to the renewal of their franchise and pole license agreements with the Town of Estes Park. He introduced Tom and Bob Duchen, representatives of River Oaks Communication Corp., who provided a progress report to the Board related to the agreements. The agreements are being modernized and updated with a draft franchise agreement and a draft pole attachment agreement having been sent to Baja for preliminary review. The franchise agreement includes but is not limited to: franchise fee of 5% of gross revenues for cable television service only (it does not include telephone or internet services being provided by Broadband per federal regulation); clauses to protect the Town against violations of the agreement; indemnification, insurance and bonding requirements; customer service standards; levels of technical performance of the system; a channel for governmental access programming; and free cable service to Town and School District buildings. The Board discussed upgrades Baja is making to their system; gaps in the availability of cable service in the Estes valley; the prospect of expansion of service; the industry standard related to charges for pole attachments; and noted that an increase in fees to Baja will most likely result in higher fees to their customers. Currently, the Town charges Baja $3 per cable pole attachment on a total of 2,915 poles annually; in addition approximately $58,000 in franchise fees were received each year for the past two years (2010 and 2011). The Board will discuss the pole attachment fee when additional information related to an FCC rate calculation is completed. Mr. Duchen estimated the average pole attachment fee for cable in Colorado is in the neighborhood of $5.61. The current agreement between the Town and Baja Broadband will expire on October 25, 2012, and the recommendation was made by the consultants to extend the agreement until December 2012 or January 2013 to allow time to complete negotiations related to the agreements. Mayor Pinkham recessed the meeting for dinner at 5:16 p.m. The meeting resumed at 5:28 p.m. VISIT ESTES PARK (LMD) 2013 OPERATING PLAN. Peggy Campbell, Kathy Palmeri, Scott Webermeier, Chris Wood, and Lee Lasson, all representing Local Marketing District (LMD) / Visit Estes Park were in attendance at the meeting. Peggy Campbell, President and CEO, reviewed the activities of the LMD/Visit Estes Park over the past year including promotion of local events; developing a new Town Board Study Session – October 9, 2012 – Page 2 website with multilingual translation capabilities; conducting familiarization tours for travel writers from international, local, and regional markets; and working on the branding process. She noted that by coordinating with staff of Park School District, the Learning Place, and Eagle Rock School, young people are getting involved in the branding process. Ms. Campbell also reported that in July, the Visit Estes Park Board of Directors approved an additional $75,000 in funding to supplement advertising campaigns in response to the loss of business due to the Woodland Heights Fire and the High Park fire which occurred early in the summer. She noted that in 2013, the LMD will be focusing on continuing to promote the Estes Park area with a goal of increasing overnight stays and subsequently increasing the lodging tax as well as the sales tax for the Town of Estes Park; initiating the use of a booking engine for accommodations; continuing branding efforts; and monitoring entities that are, or should be, collecting and remitting the 2% lodging tax. Kathy Palmeri, LMD Board President, said this task is currently performed by Secretary/Treasurer Webermeier, who is the only person authorized to receive this information from the State. In the future, the LMD plans to transfer this responsibility and authority to a staff member so that he/she can identify and follow-up with property owners to ensure that the appropriate taxes are being paid. Over the past years, the Town of Estes Park has provided funding for the LMD’s marketing efforts and a request for funding for 2013 will be forthcoming. Assistant Town Administrator Richardson noted that funding has historically been addressed through the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the LMD and the Town. EMAIL RETENTION. Supt. Fraundorf reported that in conjunction with the conversion to Google as the Town’s email server, software was purchased to manage email retention. Postini software keeps a copy of every email sent or received through the estes.org system for a year, automatically deleting it when it is 366 days old. This is a change from the previous practice when emails were deleted from the Town’s servers every 30 days to guard against overloading the system. Attorney White stated that State statute does not mention a length of time emails must be retained and said Town policy should be developed to reflect current practices. He noted that emails related to Town business that are received by the Trustees at their personal email addresses would also be subject to the email retention policy. Supt. Fraundorf recommended the Trustees utilize their estes.org email addresses for all Town business to avoid any issues related to retention. Staff will bring forward an email retention policy for Board review and subsequent approval. In answer to a question about the security of the email system, Supt. Fraundorf said that with the Google system, emails are stored in the “cloud” spread across multiple servers in multiple locations to provide security. He noted that Google has the highest level of security certification existing for the protection of emails and email accounts. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS. Topics at the Study Session scheduled for October 23, 2012, include: • Policy Governance • LMD Branding. The Board requested that the LMD Branding presentation be limited to new information related to the branding process. They requested an addition to the agenda of an update on the schedules for the MPEC project and the 100-stall barn to be provided by Dir. Zurn. There being no further business, Mayor Pinkham adjourned the meeting at 6:35 p.m. Cynthia Deats, Deputy Town Clerk