CC Minutes - 10/15/07 Public Hearing

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Mr. Mecham said there were few providers seeking to expand into the Eugene market and the likely result of not renewing the current franchise agreement was that the City would have even less control over cable television services. He was not certain that Comcast would remain without a franchise agreement, which could leave the City with no cable television services. He thought the better approach to obtaining more choices for subscribers was to renew the franchise while encouraging competitors. Ms. Taylor said she had heard that low-income subscribers had very few channels currently. Ms. Berrian said she had received complaints about the most basic tier of service. She said those issues had to be addressed at the federal level, but local governments could advocate for better oversight. Ms. Bettman asked if the City was making the additional $50,000 payment for education and government access channels. Ms. Berrian replied that Comcast would make that payment to the City. Ms. Bettman asked for clarification of the income that would be excluded under the new agreement. Ms. Berrian said there were two types of disputed income: income from advertising commissions and subscriber territory and income received when new programs were launched within the subscriber territory. She said a dispute over commissions had resulted in a settlement and the agreement provided for a $200,000 payment to the three jurisdictions in lieu of that income. 5. PUBLIC HEARING: An Ordinance Concerning the Police Commission and Amending Sections 2.013 and 2.368 of the Eugene Code, 1971 Linda Phelps, Eugene Police Department, provided an overview of the amendments, which addressed issues that had been raised by the City Council. She said those issues included elimination of a position appointed by the police chief and changing the designation of a position from Citizen Review Board to Civilian Review Board (CRB) representative and clarifying the role of that position. Ms. Piercy opened the public hearing and called for testimony. Joe Alsup , 36 West 38th Avenue, Eugene, Police Commission vice chair urged the council to approve amendments modifying membership and clarifying the role of the CRB members. He said the commission unanimously supported the amendments. There being no further testimony, Ms. Piercy closed the hearing. In response to a question from Ms. Piercy, Mr. Lidz explained that an issue was raised regarding substitut- ing the word "civilian" for "citizen" throughout the ordinance, even where it referred to the community members of the commission as opposed to the CRB member. He said the term "citizen" was used throughout Chapter 2 in the description of other City commissions when it referred to a person who did not represent a specific entity to distinguish them from members who were designated representatives from other bodies or organizations. He said the definition of a citizen as someone who was a resident of a city or town, especially one who was permitted to vote, was the sense in which citizen was used in the current code. He said that could be changed but recommended it be done by separate ordinance for all board and commis- sions. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 15, 2007 Page 10 Public Hearing