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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/17/03 Board of Public Works Public Hearing Minutes392A 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 392A PUBLIC HEARING NOVEMBER 17, 2003 time for repairs, satisfactory nature of repairs, outage problems, responsiveness to billing errors and refunds, and public access to the local public education and governmental channel. As for any comments unrelated to these topics, this is the time to be here to influence Comcast. The City of South Bend cannot require Comcast to provide any particular program, or include a specific network. The City's contract is on behalf of City residents, and any comments from them will be considered, which is a determining factor for the Board of Public Works to extend this contract to 2013. Mr. Jim Petersen, Comcast, was available for comment and feedback. Mr. Petersen noted that Comcast has made a few changes since the contract was approved in 1998; from TCI to AT&T to Comcast. Procedural changes were made, as well as organizational changes. The rebuild of the South Bend system was completed during this time in the City of South Bend. $13 million was spent in an upgrade to the physical plant, which is over five hundred(500) miles of cable that has been replaced over the past several years. A number of channels has also been added from 36 channels to 59 in basic and expanded categories. Additional digital product has also been added. The digital package n ow has 188 channels, compared to 44 channels five years ago. Many options are available to customers. Comcast can now offer new technology as it comes out, most currently, high speed Internet service. The future will bring video on demand and Tivo. The reliability of the cable service has also increased in the past five years. Level of service calls has decreased in the same time period. The public hearing was then opened for comment. Six (6) citizens signed in to speak their comments, all of which is contained in the recording, which concerned the following topics: 1) Removal of desirable programs from the basic service package and positioning of these programs in the higher level of service which low income persons cannot afford; 2) unavailability of a service package rate slightly higher than basic level which would contain removed programs; 3) a surplus of home shopping channels in the basic package and deletion of more desirable programs; 4) availability of cable in the downtown South Bend area and in public buildings; 5) poor service and poor notice of changes; 6) using the local access channel for commercial programming and inadequate equipment for public access channel; 7) too many programs with "murder, mayhem and sex"; and 8) lack of direct access on the public channel (3). An audio tape contains the actual public comments. There being no one else to speak, the public portion of the public hearing was closed. Written comments or e-mail comments could still be forwarded to the Board of Public Works within the next five (5) days. Mr. Peterson, Comcast, had no further comments. Any additional comments or e-mail comments would be reviewed by the Board of Public Works. The Board will take action on the franchise agreement extension in December 2003. This date of this meeting will be posted on the City's web page. At the public Board meeting, public comments will also be welcome. Attorney DeRose gave her e-mail address to attendees. Mr. Peterson was asked to forward his comments to the City of South Bend within the next five (5) days. All comments will be posted on the City of South Bend's web page. All public information regarding this meeting will also be available from the Clerk of the Board of Public Works. Comcast gave the audience a toll free number to call (1-800 824- 2000) which is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer a variety of questions from customers. 1 1 392A PUBLIC HEARING NOVEMBER 17, 2003 Mr. Gilot stated that if there were a finding of non-compliance with the contract terms that would constitute a breach, the City would find another service provider. No other date was scheduled for a public hearing concerning the agreement extension. The public is welcome to attend any Board of Public Works meetings, which are the second and fourth Monday of each month, commencing at 9:30 a.m., 13th floor meeting room, County -City Building. Several citizens asked questions of the Board and Attorney, all of which are contained in the recording. There being no one else present wishing to address the Board concerning this matter, the Public Hearing was closed. The Public Hearing was concluded at 6:40 p.m. I AT ST: Angela Oacob, erk 1 Gary A. Gilot, President Carl P. Littrell, Member Donald E. Inks, Member