City of Seattle Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB) 1/13/2014 Minutes
Topics covered included: Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller report; Cable Office report; announcement of the 2015 Technology Matching Fund; committee work plans and priorities; Net Neutrality statement, low-income broadband, plans for the “retreat” in February; wrap up/next steps.
Meeting minutes
Please refer to the audio podcast for full dialogue, including questions, answers and detailed information. http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CTTAB/podcast/cttab.xml
Attending: 24 people
Board Members: Ben Krokower, Beryl Fernandes, Carmen Rahm, Dana Lewis, Joneil Custodio, Jose Vasquez, Nourisha Wells, Sarah Trowbridge
Public: Doreen Cornwell, Kit Eldredge, Angela Gilliam, Brian Hsi, Chris Lona, Dashiell Milliman-Jarvis, Margie Nicosia, Nancy Sherman, Michael Spindler, Dan Stiefel
Staff: Michael Mattmiller, John Giamberso, Tony Perez, Delia Burke, Derrick Hall, Vicky Yuki
Meeting was called to order: 6:05 PM
INTRODUCTIONS, AGENDA APPROVAL: Nourisha Wells
Carmen Rahm and Jose Vasquez were welcomed to the Board.
Motion
Beryl Fernandes moved to accept the agenda, Ben Krokower seconded.
Agenda was approved.
DECEMBER MINUTES APPROVAL: Nourisha Wells
Minutes for December. Changes? No changes.
Motion by: Sarah Trowbridge
Second by: Dana Lewis
Carmen Rahm abstained as he wasn’t at the meeting.
Minutes approved.
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER REPORT: Michael Mattmiller
Exciting 2015 in DoIT as well as a number of policy related initiatives. Welcome to new CTTAB members.
Internal: Next Generation Data Center Project. Very close to begin construction in March and moving staff in by mid-October. Centralizing the operation.
Organizational assessment of the Department. Learned that people were generally satisfied with DoIT staff. Less happy with IT leadership and direction. Would like stronger central governance of IT and to have less duplicative services across the City.
Mayor’s IT subcabinet: Update next month.
External: Obama’s address on Broadband, data privacy, security, access to gigabyte service nationally. What is the City’s ability to provide broadband as a utility? What is our ability to have city-wide Wi-Fi? Privacy initiative: 13 city departments are invested. Privacy statement will outline the details on what will take place. The 1st meeting took place in November: resolution that will be transmitted to council in February. Ginger Armbruster, Ryan Biava from Mayor’s office are also heavily involved in this.
Digital Equity Initiative: Not everyone is participating in information technology. People need access to technology, basic literacy in order to engage and use the content online to get jobs and maintain their health and meet other service needs. Currently engaging stakeholder group, and in the spring make decisions as a community to set goals and steps to implement.
One-pager draft on the screen. Outlines what the timeline and actions we will be taking to guide the Digital Equity Initiative process. The final will be distributed to CTTAB when available.
Questions
Carmen: What is the possibility of being involved in what you have going on? Especially if we are working on similar issues. Both with data center and digital equity?
Michael: Great opportunity to partner and have further discussion. Especially as we look at disaster recovery needs in the City.
Jose: Outreach strategy for the Digital Equity initiative?
Michael/Delia: In the process of getting input from Internal Departmental Team (IDT) and internal stakeholders (early February); external stakeholders to pull together a draft vision, initial goals and objective. Then community roundtables and by the end of June have an action plan completed.
Beryl: What about other departments that do similar equity work?
Michael: Yes, they are on our list, or will be, of internal stakeholders, if they are not currently included on the IDT.
CABLE OFFICE REPORT: Tony Perez
Existing Cable Franchise boundaries
Cable Code Amendments: Hearing from new cable providers (CenturyLink) so there was a lot of time spent in connecting with these companies. What can we do to changes the ordinance to make it easier for new companies to compete in this process? Changes:
- Correct certain inaccuracies that have changed from when it was written in 1970s and the various changes in the 80s, 90s, but these were not incorporated in the code.
- Another part was to modernize it.
- Didn’t reflect more modern methods of communications.
- Consistent with federal law.
- Consistency with current city policies/practices: 10 years seems too long to review technology and changes in the use of technology.
- Streamlines procedures
- Reorganized the code so that it has a more logical flow.
Substantive changes:
- Eliminating the current cable franchise boundaries (downtown, central district 2, etc.) Eliminate these districts because they inhibit competition and create disparities in the way the franchise is allocated.
- Allow more flexible buildout terms. Currently requires buildout of the entire district within 7 years. However, wherever you go, you need to address the need of the lower income communities.
- Codifying restrictions to long-term exclusive contract in condominium and apartment buildings.
- Enhancing call answering standards and reporting. When you call, they have to alert you to your option to connect to a customer service representative within 30 seconds.
- Reserving city’s right s in a fluid regulatory environment.
- Rename the Cable Office to “Office of Cable and Broadband.”
Questions
Margie Nicosia (broadband committee member): Are you going to request standards to what they will be providing? How will these standards make it less cost prohibitive? Is this just for TV services or with Internet as well?
Tony: Standards, Yes, there will be standards. The code and amendments address this. This will cover cable television, not Internet.
Kit Eldredge: Is there any time of Dig Once procedure as they start laying wire?
Tony: The City has utility coordination team. We are invested in not digging up the streets twice. Or when new buildings are going up. Most of this is done through SDOT and City Light.
Beryl: Reducing the contract from 15 to 10 years is good, but still seems long for a project like this?
Tony: The standard is about 10 years in most municipalities. Companies need a certain amount of time and predictability when seeking financing
Chris Lona: Does the 21st Century Communications and Disability act have impact on the Cable Office’s work.
Tony: Not to our knowledge, but we’d like to hear more about it.
Tony: No, the cable act does not cover that. We can’t prohibit telecom companies from private transactions. Aerial deployments would be need to be using our poles. $28 per pole per year. Underground, they need to pay a certain amount of fees.
Nancy Sherman: What part of the code addresses the end user (customers)? Something similar to Internet?
Tony: Provisions that will apply to all providers, but this is not included in the code. They can still control their tiers, packages, etc. There are provisions for example, of penalties, but not what they present. We don’t have that authority over Internet services. But that might change.
GB services are currently being provided to 22,000 customers by CenturyLink
1 partner providing GB service to International District
Broadband study: SDOT, City Light are working to look at how we can lower the cost of operation and construction of GB service in Seattle. Market analysis, written residential survey has been sent out.
PUBLIC COMMENT:
Ben Krokower: Working with a group of city residents who are interested in a municipal broadband committee. They are currently sending out a survey and he will be tweeting it.
Dorene Cornwell: NPR Consumer Electronics Show: Twitter is used in Spanish often by caregivers. Police video hackathon, great really boring video of New Year’s Eve, issue of are police badge numbers identifiable during crowd control. Would like to make a pitch for larger badge numbers on riot gear.
Carmen Rahm: Press release from Seattle School District re: Technology Learning Summit, bring in 15 students, business leaders, teachers parents, going on a roadshow to all the schools to share what came of summit, what their vision is for improving education, intervention, parent/student/teacher interactions.
Jose Vasquez: Latino Community Fund – Latinos in Tech, hosted first successful event at Bellevue Microsoft Store and is looking for another place for a second meet up. Please contact me. How many people expected? Last time we had about 15. About 30 couldn’t make it on a weeknight on the eastside. Looking for something on the Seattle side.
Chris Lona: Thanks for the shout out about Site Connection in the last Brainstorm.
2015 TECHNOLOGY MATCHING FUND: Delia Burke
Providing funds for technology literacy, access, and electronic civic engagement to community groups. See Seattle.gov/tech/tmf for the guidelines and application.
- We have more money – $470,000 in the budget this year! (150,000 increase due to state broadband office)
- Increasing grant award from 20,000 to 30,000. Can have larger projects with deeper impact
- Launching the application this month. CTTAB participation is extremely valuable.
- Deadline in March; workshops in February
- Please share postcards with your networks
- If you’d like to be on the committee, the greatest bulk of work is in April, with decision in May.
Still getting the data in for 2013 impacts:
- Reached 4,600 residents reached
- The Community Technology Flickr site has photos of what was accomplished in 2013 as well.
Questions
Carmen: Is matching required?
Delia: In-kind, cash and volunteer. Looking at reducing from 1:1 to .5:1
REVIEW LOW-INCOME BROABAND & NET NEUTRALITY STATEMENTS: Sarah Trowbridge
Net Neutrality Statement: can Internet be regulated under Title 2?
Motion by: Sarah
Second by: Ben
Approved/Denied: Passed
See http://cttab.seattle.gov/2015/01/15/position-statement-net-neutrality/ for the statement.
Low-income Broadband Statement: Put in specific number of 25MBs per sec for any provider, which is the number that the FCC will be passing. Will continue working on the draft and would like to vote on this at our next meeting.
Beryl: Has anyone from low-income providers been approached? Concern of only having been distributed to Broadband committee and CTTAB, without input from the low-income community. Beryl’s recommendation is to get comments from low-income advocates before finalizing.
WORKPLAN DRAFTS: each committee
Nourisha: Next up, we have committee work plan drafts.
Dana: please put your minutes and agendas to the blog
PRIVACY COMMITTEE: Beryl Fernandes
CTTAB PRIVACY COMMITTEE 2015 WORKPLAN
Submitted by Beryl Fernandes, Chair, CTTAB Privacy Committee
OBJECTIVE: INFORM AND RAISE AWARENESS OF PRIVACY ISSUES
APPROACH: COMMUNITY-BASED, GROUND-UP, COLLABORATIVE
- Identify community needs, concerns and actionable items to better manage privacy
- Explore existing or potential impacts from existing, possible new technologies and practices affecting Seattle residents, workers, and small businesses
- Address issues through community collaboration: techies and non-techies,
N and S Seattle, 1% & 99%, across cultural groups, ages, capabilities, and more.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR WORK PLAN
- CTTAB’S STATED WORK PLAN CONSIDERATIONS
– Inclusion, Diversity, Openness, Accessibility, Privacy, Transparency, Security - MAYOR & COUNCIL PRIORITIES
– Privacy as a work plan priority, CTTAB’s considerations, Race & Social Justice
APPROACH
- PHASE I – DRAW ON WISDOM OF THE CROWDS
– Existing City studies addressing privacy, online crowdsourcing, in-person interviews,
small group discussions
PRODUCT: 6-10 INDIVIDUAL STORIES FROM RESIDENTS, WORKERS,
SMALL BUSINESS - PHASE II – SYMPOSIUM
– 2-Min each presentation of Individual Stories, Themes
– Panel Presentations, Q & A
– Small Group Discussions
PRODUCT: SUMMARY and 3-6 COMMUNITY PRIVACY ISSUES FOR
FURTHER EXPLORATION THROUGH “COLLABORATHON”
- PHASE III – “COLLABORATHON”
– People coalesce around selected privacy issues
– Teams collaborate across broad cross sections of the community: tech, non-tech, policy,
small business, workers, N & S Seattle, 1%-99%, 0-99 year olds, etc.
– Multiple small team meetings rather than one big hackathon, with a focus on multi-
disciplinary rather than just coding solutions. - PHASE IV – REPORT BACK
ACTIONS TO DATE
- After sifting through multiple options, scrutinizing advantages and disadvantages, weekly conference discussions of crowdsourcing tools, designed, developed, obtained feedback and incorporated comments into the approach to harness the “wisdom of the crowds” – the community. Obtained enthusiastic support locally and nationally for the inclusive approach and methods planned for each task.
- The focus on directly including the voices of low income, communities of color and other vulnerable populations, as opposed to having the 1% speak for them, drew particular attention and kudos from privacy experts in this small but growing field locally and nationally, some of whom were willing to fly across the country to participate in the Symposium.
- Secured a date and commitment for Washington State Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu as Keynote Speaker and contacted several other potential panelists.
- Obtained commitments from potential partners and volunteers for each of the three dates August 2014, September 2014 and March 2015 for each phase and task e.g. Online Registration, Crowdsourcing options and tools, in-person interviews and small group discussions, Publicity, Flyers, Auditorium Registration, Panelists, Council, Volunteers.
- Worked with each partner and volunteer on specific tasks, which were previously prepared in time for the August and September 2014 Symposium dates.
- Beginning 2014 with little visibility for or interest in the issue of privacy, it is now near the top in some circles. While no one entity can take credit for the burgeoning interest in Privacy, City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, who brought Privacy to CTTAB’s attention, and CTTAB, who followed up on Council’s priority, certainly played a part. There have been several discussions, including televised panel discussions on Privacy. The Mayor established an inter-departmental director-level Privacy Team. The CTO established a Citizens Privacy Advisory Committee to develop guiding principles and a toolkit. Other entities outside the City continue or have stepped up their work in this arena.
2015 WORK PLAN PRIORITIES
- Review Actions to date
- Explore options for existing work plan
- Confirm sponsorship & finalize plans for Privacy Symposium March 26, 2015
- Re-Confirm plans with Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu
- Firm up commitments with volunteers, panelists, venue, and more
E-GOV COMMITTEE: Joniel Sampana
Lots of members! But always looking for more
Explore and introduce new digital tools (PEOMPS priority rolled into E-gov)
Solutions to help improve city services
Serve as liaison between city and code for Seattle
More people aware of e-civic engagement
Priorities:
- Citizen services – social listening, 311 citizen case management
- Open data – intra department data sets and citizen data centers
- Monthly highlights – bring attention to events and share through Brainstorm
- Summer internships – work with Mayor’s office, for strategic partnership with tech, edutech and nonprofit organizations.
Meeting monthly on Wednesdays
BROADBAND & CABLE COMMITTEE: Sarah Trowbridge
Recommendations for broadband strategy – Positions statement
Top 3 priorities
- Cable franchise negotiations
- Low-income broadband position statement
- Working on the Director’s rule – cable code revisions
Meet every last Monday of the month at O’Asian.
Full workplan:
The committee is using Google docs to share and work on drafts of the workplan and policy statements.
DIGITAL INCLUSION COMMITTEE: Ben Krokower
Solicited feedback from committee members and staff.
Providing strategic directions
Collect feedback on digital needs from citizens in Seattle
Priorities:
- TMF support
- Get Online campaign
- [Note: Digital Equity Initiative was added later]
Would like to build in more opportunities to visit the community, service providers, collecting feedback and bringing that back to CTTAB meetings.
Need TMF committee members: lots of work, but important work. It will be very rewarding!
Contact Ben directly and subscribe to the listserv.
Carmen invites people to piggy back on the summit report out meetings.
PLAN FOR FEBRUARY RETREAT; POSSIBLE PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSION WITH MAYOR/COUNCIL:
Ask has gone out to mayor and council about their participation. Awaiting responses
We present our work plans to the elected that come to the meetings.
Abbreviated work plans – ask them for feedback and how that will fit in their priorities. Michael has indicated that the mayor has already distributed his IT priorities, so we feel that we have enough to go on for this.
WRAP UP DISCUSSIONS/NEXT STEPS:
Carmen will send out the schedule for the summit report out when it’s complete. Likely March and April of this year.
For the board to share any documents or events that we want Carmen to share on behalf of us to the committees.
Nourisha: If there is nothing else, then I call this meeting of CTTAB closed (8:10 PM)
Meeting adjourned.