CC PACKET 04241990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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O'CON NOR & HAN NAN ATTORNEYS AT LAW Steve Sarkozy April 12, 1990 Page 3 the Stech study the Commission was only developing a model, and had not made any determination as to whether or. not the Commission would recommend such a model to its Member Cities. That determination was reserved until the second dimension of the study was completed, whether to actively- administer the Franchise requirements related to community programming or to recommend the assumption of community programming by the Member Cities. AGGRESSIVE REGULATION VS. DIVESTITURE OF COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING BY COMPANY It would be a mistake to assume that the Commission has not in the past aggressively administered the Franchise as it relates to community programming. Over the eight year history of the Franchise such regulation has been one of the three major time consuming efforts of the Commission along with regulating the • educational uses/institutional network and transfers of ownership. From my experience I would guess that regulation of community programming has consumed the most of the Commission' s time. As stated earlier, the Commission has constantly dealt with requests from the company to downgrade community programming, has monitored community programming staffing and equipment repair and replacement, has monitored the production of community programming, and has over the years often notified the company of impending sanctions if performance were not brought in compliance with the Franchise. However, the Commission has always been faced with the reality that community programming is not a priority of the cable company. Further, as the Commission determined, community programming has not achieved the potential originally envisioned for the North Suburban area. This failure is not for lack of interest on the part of the public. The most attended public hearings held by the Commission have been those public hearings related to community programming. Additionally, the Commission' s subcommittee of access users has been an active subcommittee for many years. The problem continues to remain, however, that community programming is a nonprofit-making arm of a profit making corporation. The Commission has been able to make the company perform, but it has not been able to make the company care about community programming. Although it -ma'y sound trite, the Commission has been faced with the realty that, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can' t make him/her drink. "