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To: Attorneys and City Administrators or Managers for the Cities of Arden <br />Hills, Falcon Heights, Lauderdale, Little Canada, Mounds View, New <br />Brighton, North Oaks, Roseville, St. Anthony, and Shoreview <br />From: Randall Tietjen <br />Date: May 23, 2014 <br />Re: Formal renewal of Comcast's cable -television franchises <br />Introduction and Summary <br />On May 15, 2014, the Northern Suburban Communications <br />Commission (NSCC) passed a resolution recommending that its ten member <br />cities (listed above) preliminarily deny the formal proposal of Comcast of <br />Minnesota, Inc., to renew Comcast's cable -television franchises with the <br />member cities. Each of the member cities now has until June 20, 2014, to <br />accept or preliminarily deny Comcast's proposal. The member cities should all <br />accept Comcast's formal proposal. Federal law, in the end—after an <br />administrative hearing—allows only four limited grounds for denying <br />Comcast's formal proposal, and none of those grounds exist here. <br />By continuing to put Comcast and the member cities through a formal <br />franchise -renewal process, the NSCC is leading its member cities on what <br />might be called an expensive "fool's errand"—with an unlawful goal that the <br />NSCC is not going to achieve. Comcast's formal renewal proposal provides <br />generously for all of the capitol needs associated with the public, educational, <br />and government -access channels (PEG channels) operated by the North <br />Suburban Access Corporation (NSAC), the non-profit affiliate of the NSCC <br />that operates the member cities' "CIV" PEC channels. But for a long time, <br />the NSCC has been singularly focused on getting Comcast to charge its <br />customers ever higher PEG fees during the upcoming franchise terms to <br />cover the operatiq expenses of the NSCC and NSAC. <br />Under a settlement agreement in 1994 ("the 1994 Agreement") that will <br />soon expire, between the NSCC and a predecessor cable operator, Comcast <br />currently collects PEG fees from its customers in the member cities to fund <br />operating expenses of the NSCC/NSAC. But since the date of that <br />settlement, federal law regarding cable franchising has made clear that the <br />