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BackgroundCoxFranchise

.' Watchmaster Note:Background Franchise Negotiations -- With its the AmendedResolution, the City Council sets a “drop dead” date of December 2004 to limit the extension of Cox Cable franchise negotiations. They voted unanimously to cut the extension to one year, although the Telecommunications Board had earlier recommended Council support for the two-year agreement. Council members immediately amended their vote when City Attorney Kit Williams pointed out that a formal agreement would help ensure that the City continues to receive franchise fees from Cox (a yearly sum projected at more than $540,000 for 2003.)

The original resolution was based on a one-page agreement that would have ended on December 31, 2005, pushing the renewal negotiations more than five years beyond the original termination date of November, 2000. Under the Council Approved one-year agreement, there will be no changes in the Current Franchise, which has been in effect since 1991. (See EarlierNegotiations)

At the October Council meeting, members of the Council and CAO Earnest had expressed their frustration at the lack of progress in franchise renewal negotiations that were begun in 1996. And the Telecommunication Board had previously cited a ListOfCaveats and a revised set of game rules for considering Cox’s cable television services and other information services -- not only for the City but for a RegionalBroadband network.

City negotiators prepared a CoverLetter listing the caveats and recommending specific topics to be addressed as the Council considers the Task Forces’s role for the City and the Region. The Telecom Board also reviewed the caveats and other recommendations at their October 16 meeting, where Board Chair Susan Cromwell added a clarification of the Telecommunications Board position regarding the proposed resolution. She pointed out that the Board's "recommendation to extend the contract is not a recommendation to renew the franchise." The November meeting provided few additional insights into how negotiations would proceed, other than in Earnest's October30LettertoCox.

Watchmaster’s Note: At stake, aside from programming and rates, are potential telecommunications services by Cox and other providers that could strengthen our local and regional television and broadband telecommunications. Within past negotiations, the City has been largely unsuccessful in reaching agreement with Cox for services that could include channels and high speed capacity for medical and emergency services, additional education and learning technologies, and related university, school system, governmental and civic facilities. Negotiations also have included Cox's provision of major capital improvement funds, such as the $300,000 obtained with the 1991 franchise signing. Under FCC regulations, the Cox franchise must provide for the City's PEG access television channels -- for Public access, Education The City's principal points for negotiation “on the table” now were first outlined in the City's original 1997 NeedsInterest study, and again in a CitySummary letter in January, 2003. The City's terms have been rejected consistently by Cox negotiators as shown in their heavily RedlinedRejection of the City's 72-page draft submitted to Cox in December,2001. See EarlierNegotiations.