11/17/03 Board of Public Works Public Hearing Minutes

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392A PUBLIC HEARING NOVEMBER 17, 2003 A Public Hearing for the Extension of the Comcast Franchise Agreement was held on November 17, 2003, commencing at 5:30 p.m. Present were Board of Public Works President Gary A. Gilot, Board Members Carl P. Littrell and Mr. Donald E. Inks and City Attorneys Aladean DeRose and John Livingston. City Council President Karen White, Council Members David Varner, Charlotte Pfeifer, Roland Kelly, Council Member Elect Ann Puzzello and City Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski-Farrand were also present, as well as County Council President Rafael Morton. Mikki Dobski, Community Affairs, was also present. In addition, Mr. Jim Peterson, Comcast, was in attendance. PUBLIC HEARING - AGREEMENT EXTENSION - COMCAST FRANCHISE AGREEMENT Mr. Gilot advised that this was the date set for the Board's Public Hearing concerning public hearing for an extension of the Franchise Agreement, which was signed by the Board of Public Works on October 19,1998. This hearing is scheduled to give residential cable users an opportunity to provide comments about the quality of the cablevision and related services furnished by Comcast, including repair, service outages and repair response time. The present Agreement renews itself if certain conditions are met, and is for an additional ten (10) years. By December 31, 2003, the Board of Public Works will determine whether Comcast has met the requirements for extension of the current contract through December 2013. Mr. Gilot stated copies of the current contract and frequently asked question sheets were available for the public. The ground rules for the Public Hearing were reviewed for the audience. Public comment will be open for a period of five (5) business days after the Public Hearing for any additional written comments or e-mails to the Board of Public Works on the subject of the Comcast Agreement extension. Mr. Gilot stated the Public Hearing would be recorded from the microphone at the podium; speakers were asked to sign in, identify themselves by name and address to be heard by all attending. Speakers were asked to limit their comments to three (3) minutes on comments. The comments should be limited to the programming and customer service aspects of the Comcast Agreement with the City of South Bend. The City of South Bend may not regulate the cost of telecommunication services by Federal law, and the public hearing is not a rate hearing. Ms. Aladean DeRose, City Attorney, stated that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allows cities to act as a franchising authority for cable television companies. The Franchising authority may prescribe some of the things that a cable operator must do in order to provide services to customers. These types of things, which the City of South Bend can regulate are the installation, repair, customer complaints, and basic programming categories. The City of South Bend cannot set cable rates. The power that the FCC gives to cities as to rates is only for the basic tier level of services, which is defined as the re -transmission of the local broadcast channels and non-commercial public education and governmental access channels. The role of the franchising authority (the City of South Bend) is given to it by the FCC. Comcast's basic tier level rate falls within the limits prescribed by the FCC. As the Comcast rates have gone up, these rate increases are above and beyond the basic tier level. The current contract began on October 19, 1998, with Comcast predecessor, TCI, which was acquired by AT&T, which then was acquired by Comcast. The first window of review under the contract agreement is after five (5) years. If Comcast has provided necessary technical upgrades and is otherwise in compliance with the customer service duties under the contract, the Board of Public Works can extend the current agreement for an additional ten (10) years, which would expire December 31, 2013. Under the contract between Comcast and the City of South Bend, South Bend residents are invited to and should provide input and comment on Comcast cable service, which is written into the contract. The users have and opportunity to provide input and comment on things such as phone access to Comcast, responsiveness an courtesy of the customer complaint operators, return calls, scheduling