Municipal leaders from Mountain View and around California are up in arms over an industry-backed state bill that will override the current cable franchise system and reduce local control over telecommunication services.
The bill, called “The Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act,” allows cable and telephone companies to sign statewide franchise agreements, bypassing the local agencies they have dealt with in the past. It passed the Assembly without a dissenting vote in late May and is now before the Senate.
Phone companies aiming to build broadband networks that provide phone, Internet and cable television services say the bill is necessary to increase competition, help lower prices for subscribers and ensure that networks cover remote parts of the state. But opponents say the bill could have disastrous results reminiscent of the 2000 electricity deregulation.
“How the state is going to be doing this on a statewide basis better than each community makes no sense to us,” said city manager Kevin Duggan. “It may be more convenient for the large telephone companies … but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be better for the local communities and the people who live here.”
Under the current version of the bill, cities would lose their authority to require companies to make services available to residents in every area of the city or charge franchise fees that help pay for community television stations like KMVT. Another provision requires cities to respond to a proposal within 45 days, or else the company is free to build it regardless.
According to one estimate in the Sacramento Bee, telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon have already spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying to get the bill passed, an amount indicative of the profits at stake.
“What people have to understand is this bill is going to have a tremendous impact on consumers,” said Rebecca Elliot, local representative of the League of California Cities. The League of Cities organization has teamed up with cable companies in opposing the bill.
Mountain View officials are writing letters on a weekly basis to state senators in order to voice their concerns. One of their chief concerns is a loss of funding for KMVT, which still receives more than $200,000 a year, plus a $750,000 endowment, from the franchise fees the city charges Comcast.
Brian Szabo, KMVT’s executive director, wrote in an e-mail to the Voice that the legislation “is likely to stifle a critical voice in local communities across the state.”
“It is not an unreasonable concept that media conglomerates pay an infinitesimal fraction of their net revenues to support one of the last bastions of truly independent, local speech,” Szabo said.
Sally Lieber, the third-ranking Democrat in the Assembly, said that the concerns of cities have already been addressed, and the final version of the bill will be more to their liking.
That’s an explanation that doesn’t sit well with local officials.
“It’s incredibly complex, and it’s going to have huge long-term consequences,” said deputy city manager Linda Forsberg, who manages the cable contracts for the city. “What we’re hearing is, ‘Oh, we can fix this in just some rewrites.’ What we think is we need a complete overhaul of the bill, not just tinkering with existing language.”
E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com.
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