Minneapolis Telecommunications Network
Board of Directors Meeting
Thursday, February 12, 2009

Members Present: Andrew Hedden, Joel Rainville, Tom Cassidy, Floyd Child, Kevin Jenkins, Marido Huber, Barb Nei
Board Members Absent: none
Ex-Officio Present: Lance Leupold, John Harrison, Edie French
Others Present: Pam Colby, John Akre, Jim Derks

Hedden called the Meeting to order at 5:34 p.m.

I.Opening Business

A.Comments from public, staff and board – no comments

B.Approval of February meeting agenda. Amend to add to item I. C. ?Minutes from December and January board meetings.? MSP Huber, Rainville. Amend to add item II. F. "Executive Director Review in closed session" and approve agenda. MSP Rainville, Huber.

C.Minutes from December and January board meetings. Amend motion to remove Nolley and Vose from Board Members Absent in January minutes. MSP Rainville, Child. Discussion – Huber asked if the minutes reflected appreciation of Child and Cassidy. Child pointed out that the minutes recognized Vose.

II. Reports

A.City of Minneapolis – Harrison presented
The Mayor is presenting his budget revisions on Feb. 18th and on the 23rd the full City Council will weigh in on the matter. On Tuesday of next week, the Ways and Means Committee will look at MTN board applications. The full council needed a recommendation from the committee because of the number of applications received, so MTN board members were not approved at the last full Council meeting. Comcast subscribers in January equaled 76,132.

B.Minneapolis Public Schools – French presented
French asked about how the digital conversion will affect the schools. Leupold said that he would be happy to speak with her about that off-line.

C.Comcast – Leupold reported
The Digital conversion has been delayed until June 12. Comcast was a sponsor or involved with Hockey Day, the MLK Celebration at the Convention Center, and the Winter Carnival. Colby asked if cable companies were losing customers because of the economy and Leupold said that the subscriber numbers were still strong.

D.Executive Director's Report – Colby reported
Colby handed out 2008 data collected by MTN staff and apologized that she did not have 2007 data on the page for comparison. Colby will be doing the annual report based on this data, rather than preparing it for the Member?s Meeting, as she had done in the past.
2009 is an election year for the mayor and city council members. Colby suggested that MTN tape one debate in each ward in the city, and that they begin with a League of Women Voters debate coming up in Longfellow. She would like this commitment written into MTN?s performance agreement for the city. Huber said that board had talked about establishing a committee to set election year guidelines, and she recommends that the committee has those guidelines set before approving this. Child said that this instance is different because it would be a production that MTN would do like a community event. There was discussion about the importance of featuring election coverage before the caucuses, which are coming up in early March. Colby said that she was not comfortable to go ahead with this production without the board?s support. Hedden suggested looking at guidelines of other access centers. Child suggested that this could be a job for the Executive Committee. Huber suggested that Colby search for guidelines from various access centers and forward them to the committee. Motion: to assign the Executive Committee to establish guidelines for election policies and coverage. MSP Huber, Nei. There was some discussion about how the MTN handbook applies to this. Leupold suggested that MTN come up with a policy to guide MTN in offering its production services pro bono.
Jim Derks is moving to half time on March 1.
Colby is working with SPNN on a full time Americorps hire for the fall to help primarily in youth training.

E.Treasurer?s Report – Rainville presented
Colby commented that MTN had a surplus this year that made up for last year's deficit. Production services came out over budget and training was closer to budget than previous years. Motion: Accept the December 08 P& L statement. MSP Huber, Child.

Huber made a statement to recognize Child and Cassidy upon their retirement from the board. She recognized Floyd Child for his eight years of service and his leadership, serving as board chair, and most memorably, overseeing the grievance hearings and serving on the Executive Committee. She recognized Tom Cassidy for his four years of service, and for his work on public relations, hosting MTN's magazine show on the arts, Access to Art.

IV. Adjourn
Public Meeting adjourned at 6:26 pm. to discuss item IIF. "Executive Director Review." MSP Rainville, Child