[Council Communication]  [Attachments]

Council Communication

Title:	AFN Franchise Renewal
Dept:	Legal Department
Date:	August 11, 2004
Submitted By:	Michael W. Franell
Approved By:	Gino Grimaldi, City Administrator

Synopsis:	Ashland granted Ashland Fiber Network a five-year franchise agreement in August 1999. The franchise agreement is expiring and AFN has requested renewal of their franchise. Some amendments have been made to basically mirror most of the provisions in the franchise renewal recently granted to Charter. Attached is the proposed franchise renewal.
Recommendation:	By motion action authorize the execution of the franchise renewal agreement between the City of Ashland and Ashland Fiber Network.
Fiscal Impact:	The City will receive 5% of the gross revenues from AFN in franchise fees and $0.75 per subscriber per month in PEG access fees.
Background:	AFN applied for and received its initial franchise agreement for operating a cable TV service within Ashland in 1999. The initial franchise agreement had a five year term and expires this month. AFN has applied for a five year franchise renewal. The proposed agreement has been modified from the original to basically mirror the agreement granted to Charter last year, with a couple of exceptions: 1) Charter wanted some restricted language included within their franchise concerning limitations on how Ashland may use the financial and customer data provided by Charter. Since AFN is a branch of City government, the restrictions on the use of financial data was not appropriate. Finally, the City required Charter to pay a $50,000 payment for the improvement of RVTV facilities in the City Council chambers. We did not charge this fee to AFN since AFN had been paying franchise fees on cable modems until May 2004. Charter never paid franchise fees on their cable modems.
Attachments:	•  Proposed Franchise Agreement.

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