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SOUTHWEST MINNESOTA BROADBAND SERVICES

BOARD MINUTES

November 20, 2014

6:00 PM

BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: ALTERNATE BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: 

Bingham Lake – Darren Kalvig Bingham Lake – Carol Goeman

Heron Lake – John Hay Jackson – Ken Temple

Lakefield – Ern Malchow

Round Lake – Keith Stubbe

OTHERS PRESENT  – Dan Olsen, Naomi Pederson

1 - Open Meeting: The meeting was called to order at 6:05 PM by Keith Stubbe, Chairperson.

2 – Review and Approve Board Minutes: The minutes of the October 23, 2014 meeting were approved

on a motion by Ern Malchow and second by Ken Temple. All were in favor and the motion carried .

3 – Review Financials and Approve Payables: Board members reviewed the October financial

statements, budget report and payables listing. A motion to pay the bills as listed was made by Ern

Malchow and seconded by John Hay. All were in favor and the motion carried .

a.  2015 Budget Discussion – Dan reported that re-transmission negotiations are underway. It

will be a very busy time with staff gathering required FCC Data Collection information; the

report is estimated to take at least 200 hours to complete. We will be looking at more

revenue with the 2015 budget. SMBS also needs to look at cable and internet rates. Dan

distributed information regarding increasing internet speeds as well as rates.

Dan recommended that SMBS look at ways to share resources with WindomNet. After some

discussion, the board agreed to have a joint board meeting with Windom and Attorney Chris

Sandburg to discuss a shared manager agreement and to explore joint system operations.

4 – Old Business

a.  Windom Master Services Agreement: The Windom Attorney reviewed the master service

agreement between SMBS and Windom. The Windom City Council approved it. It is basically the

same agreement as last time. Ern Malchow suggested having Attorney Pat Costello look at the

agreement on behalf of SMBS. A motion to have Pat Costello review the agreement was made

by Ern Malchow and seconded by John Hay. All were in favor and the motion carried .

b.  Other - Darren reported that he had attended the quarterly SynKro meeting in August. They will

be having another meeting soon.

5 – New Business  – 

 

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a.  Flow Analyzer – Dan distributed a quote for a Calix Flow Analyzer. This will help identify and

isolate internet slamming that has taken place several times in Jackson. This tool will help us

secure our fiber ring from cyber bullying. This software will cost $9,840 and will be shared

between Windom and SMBS. Each entity will pay $4,920. After some discussion, a motion to

have SMBS purchase the software and have Windom pay SMBS for its half was made by John

Hay and seconded by Ern Malchow. All were in favor and the motion carried .

b.  On-Line Customer Care – Naomi reported that a test run with credit cards on the OLCC web-site

was successful. The site is ready to take credit cards. Naomi reported she was under the

impression that the site would be able to take credit cards as well as payments from checking

and savings accounts. Staff completes a lot of checks by phone. There is also a much lower fee

to process checking/savings payments versus credit card. Source One Solutions stated that they

did not know we wanted checking/savings payments and want to bill us a one-time fee of $500

for programming this feature. She requested that the board approve the programming. A

motion to pay a $500 programming fee to Source One to allow checking and savings payments

on the on-line customer care web-site was made by Darren Kalvig and seconded by Ken Temple.

All were in favor and the motion carried .

c.  Other – Dan reported that TV Everywhere is up and operating. It is in the testing phase. QVC is

the only channel available. Customers will be able to sign up by using their account number.

More channels will be added.

Darren inquired about Analog vs Digital. There had been a lot of discussion about this in the

past. Dan reported that work is still being done on this and some changes will be made.

7 – Adjournment: Having no further business to discuss, a motion to adjourn was made by John Hay and

seconded by Ern Malchow. All were in favor and the meeting adjourned at 7:50 PM.

Respectfully Submitted by Naomi Pederson

Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services

Keith Stubbe, Chairperson Date