CCP 05-27-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Fr, May 7, 2014 COMCAST Mayor Dave Jacobsen City of New Brighton 2539 Robin Lane New Brighton, MN 55112 Re: Renewal of Comcast Cable Franchise Agreement Dear Mayor Jacobsen: Three and a half years ago Comcast notified the City of New Brighton of its desire to renew its cable television franchise with the City. At that time, Comcast hoped that it could informally negotiate a franchise renewal agreement with the North Suburban Cable Communications Commission (NSCC) — as we do in almost every other community across the country. Since then, Comcast has had ongoing informal meetings with the NSCC. Unfortunately, negotiation with the NSCC has proven futile and the NSCC has instead chosen to invoke a parallel formal, contentious, and expensive franchise renewal process governed by federal law. As part of the formal process, on July 29, 2013, the NSCC issued a request ( "RFP ") that Comcast submit a formal franchise renewal proposal. Under federal law, each NSCC member city, as the franchising authority, has until June 20, 2014 to approve or deny Comcast's formal renewal proposal. On May 15, 2014, the Commission is expected to issue a formal recommendation to the City as to whether Comeast's formal proposal should be approved or denied. Comcast, therefore, respectfully requests an opportunity to discuss this issue with the City Council prior to any anticipated action by the City. Comcast believes, for example, that the NSCC member cities may not be aware of the PEG funding inequities embedded in the NSCC's RFP to which Comcast was required to respond. These inequities result in distorted cross - subsidies between the member cities with respect to PEG funding. Comcast would like the opportunity to shed light on these cross subsidies and allow the City Council the opportunity to consider whether it believes these cross subsidies are fair to its constituents. With respect to the amount of PEG support, federal law expressly prohibits the NSCC from demanding that Comcast provide additional operating support if the franchising authority is already collecting its full 5% franchise fee allowed under federal law; and each of the NSCC communities are already doing so. Yet, in the RFP the NSCC actually states "the Applicant shall voluntarily pay" this support on top of the millions of dollars of support already being required. Despite the unreasonableness of many of the demands in the RFP, Comcast was required to put forth a proposal that meets actual community needs and that is consistent with federal law. If Comcast has done this, then the City cannot reasonably deny the proposal in question. In the event that Comcast's proposal is denied, and we are obliged to pursue the matter with an Administrative Law Judge or in court, we believe that we will ultimately prevail on these issues.