06-11-2014 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Response: This is incorrect. According to NSCC staff, currently, the NSCC is almost completely funded by franchise fees and only has approximately $140,000 in reserves. Comcast has comingled the NSCC and NSAC reserves and has included ongoing checking account balances used to pay monthly expenses, a deferred revenue account and a letter of credit required by the leaseholder. Argument: NSCC/NSAC should use half of its reserves on future capital needs. Response: The NSCC controls how it will use its reserves — not Comcast. Having sufficient reserves enabled the NSCC/NSAC to make the leasehold improvements required with they moved to their new location in 2010. The reserves also have no funding limitations as suggested by Comcast and was confirmed in the 2009 Settlement Agreement with Comcast. The NSCC/NSAC received funding from Comcast that can be used for operational or capital support and the reserves have been regularly audited and no such suggestion has been made to the NSCC by the auditors that the funding must be used as argued by Comcast. Argument: The Joint Powers Agreement requires all of the member cities to spend franchise fees on cable related needs. Response: The Joint Powers Agreement was originally entered into in the early 1980s before the Cable Act of 1984. Prior to 1984, franchise fees were required to be used for cable - related purposes. That requirement was eliminated in 1984 and now franchise fees can be used for any purpose at the discretion of the local franchising authority. It would appear that by raising this issue, Comcast is simply trying to deflect attention away from its proposal, which would eliminate operational funding for PEG access. How the member cities expend their franchise fees is not relevant to whether the Comcast proposal should be accepted or preliminarily denied. 6