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CABLE February 5, 2001 - 7:30 PM Public Hearing Mme. Mayor & members of the Beverly Hills City Council ~~ We greatly appreciated your postponing consideration of the Cable TV, Video and Telecommunications ordinance now before you. And, the subsequent Feb.1 workshop on the subject was most helpful. An ordinance is not just a contract with prospective vendors but with the community as well. Saying details of public access, and other ancillary services, can be worked out later, through individual agreements with vendors, gives no assurance such matters will be satisfactorily addressed.
For the past few years, with the city's shutting down of local public access to cable TV, we have witnessed the death of dissent, being effectively communicated in Beverly Hills. The choice of being permitted three minutes to comment before the City Council or going to Court to resolve our differences has been neither fair nor just. However, we have have been subjected to a plethora of government speech, never balanced in any way, with similar opportunities for the public to express its views. We would like to be assured, in this ordinance, that from now on, the community will be given opportunities for full public participation in the telecommunications revolution of this Millineum. This must be reflected in the ordinance before you tonight, as well as in the cable franchising agreements and other telecommunications contracts the City will be considering. Having consulted with the City's legal counsel in these matters, we have learned that the ordinance you are considering tonight can include a Cable TV/Video & Telecommunications Public Benefit Fund. Each cable TV, video provider and other telecommunications vendor can, indeed, be required to place a percentage of its revenues, from Beverly Hills customers, into such a special fund. Then, the Council can apportion a certain amount for each form of public benefit it wishes. Of course, PEG (Public Educational and Governmental) studios, equipment and staff should head such a list of allocations. We hope to be able to thank you for the rebirth of inclusion. Sincerely, January 23, 2001 Cable Television Hearing On January 23rd, some Beverly Hills citizens let the city council know how they feel about the council's proposed new cable television ordinance. Here's what one citizen had to say on the subject: To: Mme
Mayor & Members of the Beverly Hills City Council Once again, as with the Dec. 4, 2000 council study session on this topic, I received a staff memo on the proposed cable TV ordinance only one business day before the council's consideration of the subject. I no longer consider this a coincidence. I believe it is a deliberate effort to discourage public awareness and effective public participation. Reinforcing this belief is the complete absence of any evidence of public input in the accompanying materials I received yesterday. There is absolutely no reflection of any voices of the community having been taken into account. All the input is officially described as that of the providers and city staff. This, despite the fact that workshops on cable TV were announced at which only a few people turned up. No wonder. No mention was made in the invitations that either community or public access programming for cable TV would be among the topics discussed. The most stunning revelation in the materials received, on Monday, was on pg.2 of Attachment A. The comparative matrix clearly shows that the existing ordinance requires public access. However, the proposed ordinance does not. We cannot trust that this will be specified later, in agreements with the companies, as stated in the matrix. The council itself has already violated its own agreement to provide for this important, locally-produced public access and/or community programming. Instead, one councilmember has appropriated for herself all the cable TV access programming resources which should be devoted to the concerns and the voices of the residents. Those of us who showed up at the workshops were assured that our comments would be taken into account. And yet, they have not been. They are nowhere to be found among the documents supposedly consulted in the formulation of this travesty of alleged public interest legislation. This is all too reminiscent the council's previous hocus pocus focus groups. A meaningless exercise in futility. And, certainly no way to determine the genuine preferences of the residents of Beverly Hills. Two other topics in this proposed ordinance need addressing: This council, which claims such interest in culture and the arts is allowing, even promoting, the uglification of our city. The proliferation of cable lines, added to the visual clutter of powerlines and ever-more telephone lines will further darken our horizon. You must now require joint-trenching and the undergrounding of wires in the "flats," as is already provided for in the hillsides. Finally, the proliferation of above-ground facilities for cable, telephone and other communications technologies have become an all too conspicuous blight in our neighborhoods. You must require undergrounding of these as well. Those facilities which cannot be undergrounded must be designed to minimize their intrusion into our urban streetscapes. They must be finished in baked enamel, or the equivalent thereof, to minimize problems in removing the constant assault of graffiti posters and ads we find on these structures. Please go back to the drawing board and come up with an ordinance which is in the public interest. And which promotes the betterment of Beverly Hills and its citizens. Hopefully
yours. CABLE FABLE Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, noted E.L. Menken. Then, along came cable TV and the federal requirement to provide access to its audience. In most communities, as Congress and the FCC had expected, there are studios, production facilities and channels for Public, Educational and Government access to cable TV. Public access is legally defined as "First come, first served, non-commercial programming." Beverly Hills once had its own public access studio and channel. Soon thereafter, the city council failed to fund it sufficiently. Then they disbanded it, promising to restructure and restore it. Instead, the council took over BHTV's public access Channel 3 for itself and closed down the local public access studio. The councilwoman who promised to restore BHTV, now has her own $30,000+ cable TV series fully funded by the residents' cable franchise fees and/or their taxdollars. She even got the cable company, with whom the council is negotiating a multi-million dollar refranchising deal, to put her series up on its satellite. This is the same councilwoman who derisively refers to citizens who dare to express a dissenting opinion as "naysayers." She thinks she's amusing when calling her critics "CAVEs." According to her, that stands for "Citizens Against Virtually Everything." She may not know it, but residents say that she and her colleagues are the real CAVEs. That is, "Councilmembers Approving Virtually Everything." Everything, that is, except providing for meaningful expression by residents who may want to present 28-minute programs on their own public access channel. CABLE ACCESS MUST BE RESTORED Right now, the way the community is best able to express itself, aside from the 3 minutes allowed in front of the council, is by going to court. Of course, the litigation is paid for by both the residents and the merchants. That goes for their own lawyers as well as the city's. For what this is costing us, every residents association, and other non-profit organizations in the city, plus all our artists, musicians and others could each have an informative, monthly public access program. Such public access programming might also include panel discussions on controversial local topics. This would be a big improvement over the council's stacking its sycophants on hocus pocus focus groups, ostensibly to ascertain the views of the public. |
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