By the time you read this council corner the primaries will be over and we’ll have an idea as to how the November elections will play out locally. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of the negative advertising when it comes to election time.
Basically, if we believe even half of what the candidates say about each other, we really shouldn’t vote for any of them because none are worthy of our vote. Who do you trust to get the work done on behalf of all of us?
One of the things that I appreciate about being on city council is that I can focus on the needs of my community directly. There are times I get the impression that when stepping up to a position in Sacramento or Washington DC, the focus on local communities and their needs deteriorates. We decided to change that with the passage of Prop 1A. Remember that effort to gain back local control?
Well, guess what’s happening again?
By now you are aware of the changes being made in the telecommunications industry. Recently, our state Assembly members passed a bill, AB 2987 (also called the Digital Infrastructure & Video Competition Act of 2006), which in part will establish a statewide franchise for video cable service. You have all seen the ads about AT&T attempting to compete in the video cable service.
On the surface, the competition part isn’t a bad thing but it needs to be fair to all Californians. This bill as it stands permits new entrants providing video services to circumvent requirements that apply to existing video providers. It also does not adequately protect the taxpayers’ investment in its public right-of-way. Besides being discriminatory in its language, the bill also does not protect the public, education and government channels.
In addition, guess who’s going to collect the fees through this new bill? Would you believe that the bill in its current form is a tax under the constitution of the State. This would jeopardize local government’s ability to get revenue from franchise fees. Instead, the state would take this over and their definition of gross revenues that constitute the basis for calculating local government revenues will be significantly narrowed to a point where some cities could experience a revenue loss.
Foster City would lose about $15,000 per year or about 5% of existing franchise fees if the bill passes as it is. This is from a city with a little over 9,000 existing cable subscribers. Larger cities could lose much more.
Our City has been proactively negotiating with AT&T over the past few months to create a video services agreement that meets local interest for video competition, build out of all residential areas, PEG support, customer service standards and rights-of-way management among other issues. The City has demonstrated its ability to work proactively with telecommunications companies like Comcast and AT&T to negotiate its own franchise agreements that serve the citizens the City Council was elected to represent. This bill passed by the Assembly would literally trash the efforts we’ve undertaken.
It establishes a new bureaucracy that will grow to regulate what is essentially a local franchise process. Do you want to call Sacramento to correct a problem? I strongly urge you to contact our law makers to stop this from going further. Call State Senator Jackie Speier (916) 445-0503 and Assemblyman Gene Mullin (916) 319-2019 with your comments. THE PEOPLE NEED TO BE HEARD!
I welcome comments on this and other issues. You can email me at lkoelling@fostercity.org
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