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<br />Tuesday, November 22, 2005 City Council Study Session <br /> <br />Council members present: Mayor Charles Sisk, Councilmember Yarnell, Councilmember Clabots, <br />Councilmember Muckle (7:10 p.m.), Councilmember Don Brown (7:25 p.m.) <br /> <br />Council members absent: Councilmember Marsella, Councilmember Sackett <br /> <br />Staff present: Bill Simmons, City Manager; Heather Balser, Assistant City Manager for Governmental <br />Relations; Belinda Dogan-Pishner, Administrative Assistant <br /> <br />Mayor Sisk called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. <br /> <br />Public Comments <br /> <br />None <br /> <br />Update – Status of Comcast Cable Franchise Negotiations <br />Ken Fellman, the City’s consultant on Comcast Cable franchise issues, provided a summary of the <br />outstanding franchise issues with Comcast. He also presented a brief history of the cable franchise <br />negotiations for the newly-elected City Councilmembers. <br /> <br />Public Comments <br />Peter Stewart, expressed frustration that the City did not do a thorough job of determining the <br />community needs and asked for clarification on what Public, Educational & Governmental Access <br />(PEG) fees can be used for. <br /> <br />Discussion centered on PEG fees, what the fees can or cannot be used for, and what amount to charge <br />citizens for PEG programming. <br /> <br />Alan Soble, asked to commend former Councilmember Keany for his service to the City and recognize <br />newly-elected Councilmembers Muckle and Yarnell. He questioned whether the citizens’ survey fully <br />distinguished between government access and public access programming. <br /> <br />Jay Keany, explained that Comcast has already indicated that they are not going to provide anything <br />over and above what they are legally required to provide. He agreed that the City could insist that <br />Comcast provide over and above the legal requirements; however, Comcast could then force the issue <br />into court. He questioned the benefits to the City of becoming involved in a costly legal process. <br /> <br />Peter Stewart, explained that it is easy to lose track of what public access is; it is to give the minority a <br />voice. <br /> <br />Discussion – Boulder/Broomfield Transit Services Enhancement Plan (Boulder County <br />Consortium of Cities) <br />Clark Misner, Boulder County Transportation, explained that the Boulder County Consortium of Cities <br />has developed a plan to improve Boulder County/Broomfield transit services. The next step is to <br />conduct a study to determine the cost of implementing the plan. The City’s portion to fund the study <br /> <br />