New cable TV bill could harm Petaluma, city warns

Proposal moving through the Legislature curbs local control, hurts access stations like PCA, opponents say

June 14, 2006

By COREY YOUNG
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

It's touted as a way to bring lower prices and channel choices to a TV screen near you.

But a chorus of California cities, including Petaluma, is warning that a fast-tracked bill in the state Legislature will instead curtail television service for lower-income residents while changing how local governments negotiate their cable service.

The bill, AB 2987, is known as the "Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006."

It is backed by telephone companies AT&T and Verizon and passed a recent Assembly vote 77-0. Next week, it heads to the State Senate.

AB 2987 would open up television service in California to companies like AT&T and Verizon, traditional phone service providers looking to get into the lucrative cable television market.

By joining Comcast and smaller cable providers, the phone companies would spark competition to provide better TV service at lower prices, said proponents.

The bill "will close the digital divide, give greater choice in cable TV, and ultimately consumers will save money," Assembly Speaker and bill sponsor Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said in a statement following the Assembly's passage of AB 2987.

"At the end of the day, consumers will keep some of their hard-earned dollars because we have created competition in a market where there was none," he said.

But opponents, including the California League of Cities and the Petaluma City Council, said the bill has serious shortcomings - such as the creation of a statewide bureaucracy to manage TV contracts that takes away cities' ability to govern their local cable service.

That would allow cable companies to "cherry-pick" the wealthiest parts of town to offer the latest and greatest in cable service, opponents claim. A street full of million-dollar homes would have better cable service than an apartment complex for low-income residents, they said.

At places like Petaluma's Youngstown, a mobile home parks with a high number of lower-income seniors, "they probably wouldn't even offer it," Councilmember Mike Healy said.

"They can cherry-pick and gerrymander their area however they see fit," said Amy O'Gorman, a League of Cities representative working with Petaluma and other North Bay municipalities.

Right now, cities like Petaluma negotiate with Comcast every few years on a renewal of TV service. Cities typically get channels set aside for public, education and government programming, such as those Petaluma Community Access provides.

Service to school and libraries is also a part of the contract, as are "franchise fees" paid to the city in exchange for Comcast's right to run cable lines beneath streets and along poles. The city expects to receive $590,000 in cable fees during the next fiscal year.

The future of those fees under the statewide franchising system called for in the bill is unknown, opponents said.

The Petaluma City Council passed a resolution recently calling on legislators to protect cities' collection of those fees, along with preserving community access stations like PCA.

Opponents said the bill as currently written would prevent access stations from expanding in the future and could restrict cities without access stations from creating them.

"What the cities are trying to say is, 'The enhanced competition is good and will be good for consumers, but we need to do this in a way that respects the appropriate local role,'" Healy said.

The bill's proponents deny that cable providers will be able to discriminate based on the income of residents or that cities would lose the right to negotiate over the use of streets and other rights-of-way.

"The speaker and I have carefully drafted this legislation to protect the rights and financial interests of California cities," said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, a co-sponsor. "We will also ensure that all video providers continue to provide other important services such as broadcasting educational and governmental programming."

Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, was one of three members to abstain from voting on the bill. He said he is concerned about how it would impact existing city-cable negotiations, such as a joint-powers authority approach in Marin "that works extremely well."

Too many questions remain about the bill's impact, Nation said.

"When you get into something like this, you really have to think it through," he said. By taking away local control, the bill could "take away all the pluses and give cities all the minuses."

(Contact Corey Young at cyoung@arguscourier.com)