Terman Community Center, 661 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto, CA
Bernie Strojny, Assistant City Manager, spoke on the new organization of Palo Alto information services and the recent activities to investigate an information utility. Information Resources is being moved to Dept. of Administrative Services under Emily Harrison who is currently the Director of Finance. Dianah Neff left the City, and Bernie is now in charge of Internet program at the city hall. The City still wants to maintain a presence on the Internet, and is looking at how to enhance the city's activity on the Internet. The program was started last year with significant help from DEC but was not included in the City budget. The Finance Committee tentatively approved $57,000 for FY 95-96 in the City Manager's budget to support the Internet program. The city hired a consultant, Persimmon I.T., to review the Internet program regarding accesses to the Home Page, its organization and content, its usage by other organizations, updating and maintenance. They want to do things that are new and may not have been done elsewhere, for example, processing building permits and other applications from the Home Page. This should give better visibility and make it easier for the city departments to work together.
The Internet program was a byproduct of the DEC's application to use the city-owned utility conduit to link several DEC buildings downtown with fiber. This aroused interest on the part of city staff to look into leveraging existing city-owned utility infrastructure to develop a City Wide-Area Telecommunications Network. After several meetings with the Utilities Advisory Commission it was agreed to conduct a feasibility study for the city communications utility by an outside consultant. Study proposals were requested and several bids were received ranging from $50,000 to $3,000,000. The city signed the consultant contract with ICT in Mountain View for $135,000 to look into the entire issue of telecommunications which was approved May 8. The total telecommunications study project has 5 phases:
Phase 1. Evaluation of Telecommunications Resources.
The consultant will look at all the available city resources
including Cable Co-op and electric utility infrastructure plus
similar project experiences at other cities from which Palo Alto may
learn.
Phase 2. Market Analysis & Needs Assessment.
There will be a market analysis to assess community needs and
improved delivery of city services to meet those needs at all levels.
There also will be a Telecommunications Advisory Panel with 2 council
members, 1 UAC member, plus one citizen representative with technical
experience in telecommunications and electronic information to help
evaluate the consultant's efforts. The Mayor will make the
appointments. PA-Comnet is invited to propose a representative for
possible appointment. We may contact Bernie regarding this matter.
Phase 3. Assessment of Alternatives.
Some alternate providers such as MFS are in Palo Alto now serving
just major businesses. The consultant will present at least 4 options
which the UAC and then the Council will review and consider. The
Advisory Panel will make recommendations at that time. The schedule
is for initial report in early September. The City needs to have a
strategy and policy. They need information to aid in setting that
policy.
Phase 4. Detailed Analysis.
If the Council approves the results of the phase 3, then the
consultants will proceed with detailed analysis of the chosen option.
Phase 5. Business Plan.
Based on the detailed analysis of the approved option, the business
plan will prepared for review by UAC and approval by the City
Council. The entire process will take nine months and the final
results are due in early 1996.
There is a question as to how the advisory committee will operate under the Brown Act and Government Codes regarding conflict of interest and open meetings. The City Attorney is looking into the issues. It is expected that TAP meetings will be open and publicized.
Meetings related to this study project will be posted to PA-COMNET. It's hard to say what will be useful or what results will occur. Anaheim built a fiber network, then found that they had excess capacity which they are trying to lease to others. No one has a telecommunications utility yet, but several cities are looking into it actively.
Keith Cooley reported on the Apple conference. There is lots of concern about telecommunications regulation. One concern is how much control will the resultant monopolies have on information providers. Most comments on the proposed law are from RBOCs, cable operators, and media. They need comments from individual citizens and cities. There is less grant money available this year for community networks with the new Congress. Thinking in Congress seems to be that businesses provide connectivity, so community nets can provide information. La Plaza Community Net in New Mexico was set up on Web to provide information in a low income area where only 60% have phone access. La Plaza has a chat feature. But it is in financial trouble. They need over $500,000 to keep going, but they have little local income, and the Federal money that began it is going away. Cambridge Mass has a local net which publishes a 1 or 2 page daily news page to supplement the local weekly. we should look at doing something similar. Another local net is Boulder Colo. where businesses provide the network, with yellow pages for small businesses. Boulder has all information, no dialogue. The system is really 1-way. There are community nets in Davis and Sacramento which were funded partly by Caltrans to promote telecommuting.
Katherine Johnston noted that most local nets are very small time bottom up operations, with few resources. PA-COMNET is different in that much of the startup here was from the City. The Apple conference was very intensive and provided a huge amount of data. We need to give examples of what the Internet is and how it works and serves us. People don't have a good idea of what it is and what it provides. Each of us could provide examples and post them. We also need 2-way, not just 1-way info feeds. She noted that Barron Park already has a home page on the city www page, and encourages other organizations to also set up home pages.
Jay Thorwaldson noted that the PAMF is interested in health access and care, on-line advice nurses, and providing access to doctors in a timely manner. He also noted talking to former City Manager Sipel about cable and an information utility in 1968. He wanted to have an on-line city council meeting rather than wait all night for a topic of interest to come up. It can be done at the State level on a limited basis, with identification of on-line participants per H. Saal.
Channel 6 can do a story on how communications can have an impact and change people's lives. It parallels the history of cable access. Laws working through Congress would have a chilling impact on access and information flow. We should look at what networks are working to draw people together and build community. MPAC is interested in working to get out information on PA-COMNET and advantages of Internet access.
To make the biggest impact we should get out into the community, talk to various community groups and show them that there are benefits, and how great the benefits are with wide interchange of ideas and news.
City libraries are upgrading the computer system and Internet access, and want PA-COMNET to do demos of what the Internet is and how it works. The revised system won't include e-mail, but it will have graphic capability when upgraded from terminals to PCs. It may be possible to have a virtual Gambel Garden or show kids how to plant and grow things, or to set up similar home pages for local groups and organizations. A realtor already does a monthly calender on paper and may be able to put it on the net.
Jack Yu introduced the 3 Stanford students who are working on a study of how computer access is changing people's interactions and relations. Two other members of the group were away. They are studying Palo Alto's presence on the Internet. They still are looking at the overall activities and how things work and fit together. They are studying the equipment used and applications, like Stanford Medical. They have lots of information, but don't know how to use it or what to do with it. They think it would be useful to know how many people have computers and modems in the area. How many would be willing to use them? Will they use them to ask neighbors to share tools, to get local information, to provide news, etc.?
A map of the resources in the city would be useful. It would be useful for the Stanford students to get involved with the Persimmon study and see if they can work with it and also help out. The Stanford course is only 10 weeks, so they have 7 weeks to work and then have to make conclusions. There isn't much time left.
Cable Co-op is planning to offer T1 or T3 data lines with a capacity of up to 1.5 Mbps to a limited number of users by the end of the year. Both businesses and individuals will be connected.
The next meeting will be Wed. June 7.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:43 AM.
Respectfully submitted by Bob Moss