Gisler resigns to take similar position in Jonesboro, Arkansas

Fayetteville media services director to step down

By Joel Walsh

Posted: February 12, 2015 at 1 a.m.

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Fritz Gisler

FAYETTEVILLE -- Fritz Gisler, the city's media services director for the past six years, announced his resignation this week.

Gisler has accepted a job as communications director for Jonesboro. His last day in Fayetteville is Feb. 20.

"It's been an unbelievably exciting experience here in Fayetteville," Gisler said Wednesday. "But, in anything, when you see an opportunity that is attractive and it's part of your career path, it's something you really want to take advantage of."

The city's media services director is responsible for operating the Fayetteville Television Center and overseeing its government and public-access channels, which broadcast a range of government meetings, public-service announcements and resident-generated content.

Gisler and Douglas Bankston, a video production specialist, were awarded a regional Emmy Award last year for a video promoting Fayetteville's recycling program.

Lindsley Smith, Fayetteville communications and marketing director, said city officials will start taking applications for Gisler's position in the coming weeks.

"I love having him here. At times, I go, 'Oh, wow. What will I do without him?'" Smith said. "He just has such great skills and has done wonderful for us."

Gisler leaves the city with an annual salary of $48,734. He was hired as a police officer in 2005, before becoming media service director in April 2009.

NW News on 02/12/2015

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December 2014 minutes of Telecom Board meeting

Telecommunications Board Meeting Minutes
December 18, 2014 5:30 PM
City Administration Building Room 326
Present were Dustin Seaton, Alex Baldwin, Michael Ehrig and Wendell Huggins. Also present were Fritz Gisler, Director of Media Services.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Call to Order
Baldwin called the meeting to order and recognized a quorum.
Roll Call
Gisler called the roll.
Approval of Minutes of May meeting.
Huggins moved to approve the minutes, Seaton seconded. Minutes were approved.
Approval of Meeting Agenda.
Ehrig moved to approve agenda, Seaton seconded and the agenda was approved.
New Business:
a. 2014 Year-End Report for Media Services Division, including the Television
Center and Government Channel operations.
Gisler gave the report. Gisler stated every year the Mayor’s office asks every Division to provide them in their format that they use to also include information in the State of the City Address basically what we have done in the last year. Gisler stated that in this document he has provided, the first thing they ask is a bullet point list of major accomplishments of services provided. Gisler stated secondly a ranking of one to five of those items. Gisler stated the things the Media Services Division did in the past year included production support for the Recycle Something campaign, they developed, produced and provided all of the media placement and continue to provide support for the media campaign for the Fayetteville Alert System. Gisler stated the Chief of Staff asked them to put together a campaign for the launch of that. Gisler stated they implemented, designed and produced a $60,000 plus media campaign for the launch of Fayetteville Alert System in less than 90 days. Gisler stated they expanded series programming opportunities for public access users and also expanded production and training opportunities for public access users at the television facility. Gisler stated they improved and updated the studio technology in several ways, and received 8 national and international industry awards for excellence in video production. Gisler stated two of their staff members, Doug Bankston and himself (Fritz Gisler) received Emmy Awards this year for the work they did on the Recycle Something campaign. Gisler stated they designed, built and placed in service a location production system that provides improvements in quality and efficiency of video coverage for offsite events. Gisler gave an example of the recent Mayor’s Town Hall meeting where the location production system was used and stated that where it normally took 4 - 6 days to turn around the production with a two camera shoot that needed to be edited together that the recent production was on the Government Channel in less than 24 hours. Gisler stated they continue to provide management and implementation for the Legistar Agenda Management System and they completed the installation of the remote recording system in room 326 and an identical system in room 111. Gisler stated that in terms of ranking them 1 – 5 and that he did take input

from the staff members, Gisler stated that number one in terms of accomplishments was completing the media campaign for the Fayetteville Alert System in less than 60 days. Gisler stated that Emmy Award recognition for anybody in the television industry is the top of the top and for them to be able to say that they work for municipal television facility and that we receive that recognition has to rank up there. Seaton asked how that was not number 1 on the list. Gisler stated that the Fayetteville Alert system campaign affects everybody in the city and it encompasses the efforts of everyone on the staff. Gisler stated that to recognize their efforts and to something of that caliber and that level and to respond the way they did while continuing to provide all the same services that we usually do really is something that is very laudable and deserving of significant recognition. Seaton asked if the Fayetteville Alert System was under his (Gisler’s) guidance. Gisler stated it is managed by the IT Department. Gisler stated that number 3 was the completion of the installation of the remote recording technology in room 111 and 326 that improved their efficiency of labor hours reduced and it provides better meeting coverage and meetings are a huge part of what we do. Gisler stated the national recognition that they received for the Recycle Something campaign was unprecedented. Gisler stated they received awards for Production, Editing, and Doug Bankston received specific awards for his work in Sound Design. Gisler stated that is something he always wants to recognize. Gisler stated that expanding the production and training opportunities for public access users is also important because public access is a big part of what we do. Gisler stated they do not manage public access operation but provide all the support for it. Gisler stated the City owns all of the equipment, they provide the facility and they provide all the technical support for them. Gisler stated that from that perspective of expanding opportunities for the citizens through public access television he wanted to point that out to the Mayor and to you (the Board). Gisler stated he did not know what the Mayor would include with his State of The City Address but that he hoped the Mayor would include a few things with what we’ve done. Gisler stated he wanted to point out a couple of things they have done in terms of efficiency and saving the City money and decreasing waste. Gisler stated they provide recycling containers all over the facility. Gisler stated there are times when equipment becomes obsolete and that they try to auction it and recover some money for the City. Gisler stated they are successful on a 50-60% basis through Gov Deals auction service the City uses. Gisler stated if they cannot do it that way then it goes to E-Waste and does not just end up in a dumpster and is disposed of through proper E-Waste disposal methods. Seaton asked Gisler if he knew how much had been saved from recycle or bidding. Gisler stated he would have to check with the purchasing department to see how much they have actually brought in. Gisler stated the goals and initiatives for next year include a huge project that includes renovation and upgrade of all the AV presentation systems, projectors, pa systems, not the television recording system or video systems but all the AV presentation systems in all three of the meeting rooms in City Hall: 111, 219 which is the City Council chambers and 326. Gisler stated that it is budgeted for a little over a quarter million dollars in capital expenditures. Gisler stated that their division would manage that project. Gisler stated they would not do the work but would issue request for proposal and they would have AV integrator professionals provide that service. Gisler stated they would also manage a project to upgrade the

systems at the television center. Gisler stated that the studio production system is the last part of their system that is still in standard definition and analog video. Gisler stated they have the funding from the City Council to upgrade the facilities to provide full HD and digital production. Gisler stated they would still be standard def on the cable system when they telecast because they (Cox) will not provide an HD channel. Gisler stated the city is in the middle of designing, and constructing and in March of next year they are anticipating launching a new website. Gisler stated that he had served on the design committee for that and that it would entail a lot of rework on their part for their content because the new site would have a lot of functionality that they did not have now and they would be able to deliver media in a lot more interesting ways. Baldwin asked if they kept that in house as far as design or do they contract that out. Gisler stated the web site design is being guided by a core group of people here but it is being implemented by a company called Civic Plus. Gisler stated they (Civic Plus) host and manage a content management system which we (the City) have access to. Gisler stated the city’s website will live on their servers, we will manage it through their content management system and that will be how we interact with it. Gisler stated IT are the lead on making sure it is managed well. Gisler stated that the Communications Dept. and the Media Services Division play a very strong role in the design and implementation of it. Baldwin asked if they pay them a fee annually or monthly. Gisler stated yes but that he would not be able to tell them what it was but that last summer an RFP was issued and there were several of these organizations that presented to a city committee different solutions for the new website. Gisler stated the committee chose Civic Plus and the city council approved that. Gisler stated the last thing on the list for goals for next year is that next year is what they call an RFP year. Gisler stated every five years they issue a Request for Proposal for public access services. Gisler stated that at this point in time 2015 is scheduled to be that. Gisler stated the last one was did in 2010. Gisler stated it usually happens about the middle of the year and he and Lindsley Smith, Director of Communications, are having meetings with board members and management of Your Media which is the current public access operator to look at future needs and goals of public access television. Gisler stated there have been conversations held about where it is, where it has been and where it’s going in the future. Gisler stated that we are the only city in the State of Arkansas that has a true public access television channel and they want to make sure that it stays the same, that we maintain it and we keep it. Gisler stated they want to make sure we are providing good service which we do and that we want to make sure we are providing something to the citizens of Fayetteville in a cost effective manner and that we are spending the tax payers money wisely. Gisler stated that at the end of the day that is one thing we are charged to do. Gisler stated as they go forward and develop more concrete plans they would bring them to the board. Gisler stated they want input from board members since they represent the citizens to the city council, provide advice to the city council regarding these kinds of issues and are tasked with contract compliance for public access operator. Gisler stated they definitely need input and dialog from that stand point. Gisler stated they are having preliminary discussions to help set a foundation as to where we go in the next few months. Gisler stated as things go forward he would keep them in the loop. Seaton asked if there would be another potential goals for advertising the Fayetteville

Alert System in the new year for the additional students that come in the city. Gisler stated we are going to be doing some of that but he had not confirmed with the Chief of Staff what our media budget would be for that. Gisler stated that when we did launch the system in ‘14 that when he put the plan together that he was very straightforward with Don Mar, Chief of Staff, that it would be in our best interest to continually budget for more. Gisler stated they are running some messaging at the Malco Razorback Theater for the Fayetteville Alert System because they are getting into severe weather time. Gisler stated fall is not as bad but part of the Fayetteville Alert System is ice storms and road closure. Gisler stated they are doing that right now and they will wrap up the year and then he would confirm with the Chief of Staff what his goals are and what our budget is for the next year.
6.a Reports: Government Channel
Gisler gave the report. Gisler stated things are looking about the way they have been. Gisler stated nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary. Gisler displayed a slide showing the top 10 meeting video on demand served by granicus. Gisler stated one live event the City Council meeting for November 18th hit the top ten and the rest of them are what are called archives which is somebody has watched it after it occurred. Gisler stated he really liked the mix of stuff he sees in there like Subdivision and Animal Services Advisory Board. Gisler pointed out that 19 people watched the City Council meeting on November 18th live but 131 watched it later. Gisler stated one of the great things that we get out of this service is people being able to watch this whenever they want. Baldwin asked if that counts no matter if you watch it for five minutes or the full time. Gisler stated that counts and the reason that is important to know is that a lot times what people will do, especially a city council meeting because we time stamp those meetings and are matched to the agenda, someone may want to go in there and just see a meeting segment for one particular issue. Gisler stated they can go in there and click on the link and it jumps the video to that issue and they watch that part. Seaton asked if Gisler had ever looked at the total views for this board (Telecom Board). Gisler stated no but he could. Gisler showed a slide with metrics of where people are coming from. Gisler stated Google is sending some traffic to the site. Gisler stated it is something he is going to try to track as we go forward after they launch the new web site. Gisler stated AccessFayetteville.org will not be the primary URL it will be fayetteville-­‐ar.gov will be the primary URL and Gisler stated they would see how that switches over. Gisler stated people are sharing on Facebook and Gisler pointed out that where you see the co.washington.ar.us they have a link to the Quorum Court meetings to our video on demand page because we cover the Quorum Court so people can go to the county’s website and click on that link and get to our VOD page. Seaton asked if other cities were using a similar domain name like Fayetteville-­‐ar. Gisler stated yes and they looked all across the country and the trend is for cities to do that. Gisler stated a lot of cities have the same name. Gisler stated Fayetteville.com URL is owned by someone else and Fayetteville.org is owned by someone else. Gisler stated that is traditionally why it has been accessfayetteville and plus access to your

government it kind of supports that. Gisler stated the decision was made to change the URL to Fayetteville-­‐ar.gov. Gisler stated the .gov identifies it as a government website and the -­‐ar puts us in Arkansas. Gisler stated he had no idea why nine people watched from Amsterdam. Gisler showed the YouTube summary and stated it was our non-­‐meeting programming. Gisler showed the top 10 and pointed out that Today in America was still in the top ten and that it was linked in so many different places and they needed to take a look at it. Ehrig stated at this time that he would have to leave because he was too sick to continue. Gisler stated there was an eclectic mix of different things from the Mayor’s Corner to Trail Videos still in the winter time. Gisler show a slide of the VOD numbers comparing YouTube and Granicus. Gisler stated there were 770 on granicus and 1100 on YouTube. Gisler stated it was trending down from August a peak month because of the controversial issues being dealt with by the City Council at that point. Gisler stated he could not identify a trend in viewership on You Tube. Gisler showed a slide comparing 2013 to 2014 and pointed out they were significantly higher than they were in 2103 and the slide showed both You Tube and meeting videos combined. Gisler stated there were a total 1878 in November which is significantly higher than the 1502 from 2013 in November. Gisler stated they have been consistently higher in 14 than they have in 13. Gisler stated the last couple of months they spent finishing up the location system and wrapping up a year in the city facility. Gisler stated everything is going well at the television center operationally. Huggins asked with the offsite (location rig) like at the Mayor’s meeting last Monday would that be one of the few locations you take that offsite to. Gisler stated the Town n Gown committee meets at the research park and they would take it there. Gisler stated they were still trying to decide whether they want to take it to Gulley Park this summer to do Gulley Park Concerts. Gisler stated that right now the answer is yes but they want to make sure we do it is going to be safe and that it is going to work well for us. Huggins stated he was impressed the other Monday and that he didn’t know that was the maiden voyage of it and he was impressed the way they had it set up. Gisler stated they appreciated that and there was a lot of work that went in to that and they did all of that work in house. Gisler stated they try to do as much technical work and design work for our systems in house because it saves the city a significant amount of money. Gisler stated this was one of them and he thought they were pretty successful with it. Gisler stated all in all it worked well, looked good and they turned it around in less than 24 hours and he was pleased. Baldwin asked if they could calculate just how much they saved in work hours spent putting it together. Gisler stated that for a Mayor’s Town Hall meeting they were looking at a minimum of 10 labor hours saved for every one of those. Gisler stated that it would not be as much on the beginning because it’s new and we are learning how to use it so Monday night they had four people there because he wanted to have as many hands on deck in case we needed to do something or change or whatever. Gisler stated that as we go forward that number will go down. Gisler stated they always had three people at a Town Hall meeting and would probably continue to do so because he attends those every time. Gisler stated the goal is to have two techs on that system. Gisler

stated it is easy to set up and to carry. Gisler stated that is one of those things we were able to really show how we can improve efficiency and save the city money through technology. Gisler stated you can only do that so far and they did it with the meeting rooms and the location system and they are at the point where they have squeezed about all of the efficiency they can out of technology. Gisler stated he would have an additional report in January that would detail some more things but that on average so far through the year 2014 they average 30 meetings a month on the government channel. Gisler stated that is an increase and 4 years ago they were doing on average of 27 a month. Gisler stated they continue to be able to provide that service without interruption. Gisler stated they had to not provide meeting coverage because of a conflict or not having enough people 3 times this year. Seaton asked if that increased overtime pay for all the additional hours. Gisler stated no that they balance it out throughout the week, he works with the guys and they have a flexible schedule. Baldwin asked Gisler about doing Gulley Park if he meant safe for the equipment. Gisler stated both, that he always had to keep his eye out for the citizens and that he did not want a child running across the lawn and tripping on a cable. Gisler stated they have already had discussion about it and the crew is coming up with some ideas and they are going out there this spring to the site to look at it more closely.
Baldwin asked if there was anything else on reports.
Gisler stated that Dan Robinson was not able to attend because he was at a screening of a documentary that he produced. Gisler stated Robinson extends his apologies and that he (Gisler) would distribute via email a letter that he (Robinson) requested. Gisler stated he (Robinson) did include his report in the meeting information packet. Gisler stated he did know they had in November more class participants but they attended fewer classes in 2014 than they did in 2013. Gisler stated as the numbers break out that orientation is included as a number when they talk about class participations. Gisler stated it is not actually a class per se but it is included in those because it helps track who goes from orientation to the classes. Gisler stated if you look at those number year to date in 2014 there have been 102 people taking orientation and only 89 have gone on to a basic class but only 44 have gone on to a basic field. Gisler stated they would have some good year to date full 2014 numbers in January both from the government channel and public access. Baldwin asked when Dan (Robinson) looks at going from the first class to the second class out of 100 and only 44, does he say that is a good number or what are his thoughts on that. Gisler stated he did not know what his (Robinson) thoughts were on it but that he was a little disappointed in that. Gisler stated it is not a contract compliance issue because they do not require as a performance metric in the contract because it is not something that they really can control. Gisler stated the contract says that the public access operator will provide six classes a week in specific areas, they can control that. Gisler stated they (public access) can’t make some people come in the door to sign up for classes. Gisler stated that the reason

they track those numbers is that they are indicators as to the effectiveness of the outreach, the promotion, the experience that people are having. Gisler stated he felt they were good indicators as to performance aside from those actual deliverables that are in the contract. Gisler stated it is also a good indication what the citizens are looking at, what is the demand. Gisler stated that he believed what they were seeing is what the demand is. Gisler stated they have year on year numbers and that he thought it was interesting to see that class participants has gone up from 12 to 13 to 14 but the number of programs that are produced has gone down. Gisler stated that is one reason they are going to be having some conversation with their executive committee and their management to try to get some insight and the city council makes the final decision. Seaton asked if they approved the contract with public access. Gisler stated yes and that for 2015 we are on track.
Baldwin asked for any old business.
Seaton stated that it sounded like there were some resignations and asked if they needed to present that to the City Council for filling those spots. Gisler stated no and that he needed to follow up with Mr. Ehrig. Gisler stated to resign from a position from the board you have to provide written notification to the City Clerk. Gisler stated Ms. McCormack resigned and Mr. Ehrig unfortunately and he takes quite a bit of history with him and he (Gisler) is sad to see him go. Gisler stated what will happen is their vacancies will be advertised in the first quarter, the City Clerk will take care of that. Gisler stated then applicants will be interviewed by the Nominating Committee of the City Council. Baldwin asked if that will happen in the first quarter and then they will have two new board members. Gisler stated he believed that the goal will be by March. Gisler stated in June is when Smith’s position will be up and that he thought Erhig’s position will be up anyway in June. Baldwin stated he wouldn’t be the rookie any more. Gisler wished everyone to have a wonderful holiday. Gisler stated they were welcome at the Television Center anytime that he was happy to show them around and sit down and have conversations, answer any questions or concerns. Gisler stated it was always great to have them come down and actually see what they are doing. Gisler stated the City of Fayetteville has not just the best municipal television facility for any city of its size but it is the best television facility in this region for an operation of this size. Gisler stated he was proud of the staff and the work they do and they always just want to make it better. Baldwin stated it was neat being down there and seeing the recycle videos and what they won the Emmy for and stuff. Baldwin thanked Gisler for taking time out of his day to do that.
Baldwin made motion to adjourn and Seaton seconded.

Agenda
City of Fayetteville, Arkansas Telecommunication Board February 19, 2015
A meeting of the Telecommunication Board will be held at 5:30pm February 19, 2015 in Room 326 of the City Administration Building at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

1. Call to Order
   
2. Roll Call
   
3. Approval of December 2014 meeting minutes
   
4. Approval of meeting agenda
   
5. New Business
   
   1. Board report to City Council
      
   2. Proposed changes to Telecom Board ordinance
      
6. Reports
   
   1. Fritz Gisler—Director of Media Services
      Television Center and Government Channel Operations Report
      
   2. Dan Robinson—Executive Director, Your Media
      
7. Old Business
   
8. Announcements
   Adjourn