City Council Minutes 1984 01 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

1/1'7/84 Page -17- Thexi make a determination where we want to qo from there. Councilman Leary Comnnented it seemed there were three issues. One is sloppy PR and business practices and wasxl't certain in the long run what we could do about that. It should have its conse- quences in the market place. The others wou_Ld be the issues that are in our agreement with them; and thirdly things covered by the ordinance. He felt the latter two are where we have the responsibility and should be putting our efforts into. Have the City Attorney review the issue and wait for that response and proceed from there. Mayor Meier Inquired of the City Attorney relative to Councilman Cussen's suggestion of opening the books - on the franchise - that wasn't to determine their profit and loss for the year, is it? Attorney Rautenstraus didn't feel that it got into the profit and loss, but geared toward the City's franchise fee. Mayor Meier stated he had problems with Scripps/ Howard being asked to open their books to show their profit and loss as verification of -the rate increase. Attorney Rautenstraus advised they he would review that term more closely, and if council desires would prepare a summary and memo going through the agreement and seine out any terms that we think are in question. Mayor Meier requested that he do this along withh some written correspondence concerning the package deal. Mayor Meier stated that he agreed with Council- man Luce regarding council spending its time pursuing policy questions related to Cable TV. Councilman Woodson Inquired what the term non-exclusive franchise Non-Exclusive Franchise meant? Attorney Rautenstraus advised that non-exclu- sive franchise meant that anyone else that would desire to come into the City to apply for a franchise had the right to do so.. Actually in this case it is not a franchise; they have a permit. He felt that it was un- likely that another company would come in at this time; but there wasn't anything to stop them from doing so.unless the public was upset enough to cause a change.