Ventura and Cable Companies Express Frustration Over Their Differences

VENTURA —  As cable TV executives and city officials prepare to do battle in federal court Tuesday, both say they are frustrated by their ongoing differences.

The city, which regulates cable service, is renegotiating its franchise agreements with Avenue TV Cable and Century Communications Corp.

“Based on the events of this past week, it looks like we are in for a long, hard fight,” said Mayor Jim Friedman. “I can see now why people have been referring to this as cable wars.”

Although frustrated with the slow pace of the talks, Kyle Smith, general manager of Century Cable, isn’t taking the recent developments quite so hard.

“If the mayor thinks he is in for war, I’m sorry, I don’t see it,” said Smith. “There are reasonable people on both sides, and what we are in for is negotiations.”

The city has long been at odds with its cable TV providers. In a tug-of-war over rates, for example, Ventura’s City Council last month ordered Century to cut its basic charge by 7% after deciding an earlier 21% cut wasn’t enough.

The most recent trouble began after the city scheduled public workshops to learn what residents want from their cable service.

After consultants advised city officials to block Avenue TV Cable from videotaping the sessions, the City Council voted 4 to 2, with Jack Tingstrom and Jim Monahan opposed, to stop the recording.

The vote also authorized City Atty. Robert Boehm to take legal action against the cable company. Boehm filed a complaint against Avenue TV Cable in Superior Court on Wednesday, but not before Avenue TV Cable won a temporary restraining order against the city the same day in federal court.

The order, which says the city must permit the cable company to tape and broadcast the meetings, is in effect until Tuesday, when the matter will be heard by U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow in Los Angeles.

City officials responded by promptly canceling all but one of the eight workshops, saying the presence of cameras in the meetings might inhibit participants.

One session on Tuesday went forward as planned at the request of participants, but only after Avenue TV Cable owner Stephen George and marketing director Pam George Drake were forced to leave their cameras at the door.

“I can’t understand it,” said George the following day. “My position has been that I want to work this process out with the city, make these meetings available to the public that can’t attend, and we want the cameras to be as unobtrusive as possible. There has been no response to that from the city.”

Attorneys for Avenue TV Cable have argued that the city may have violated the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act and the Federal Communications Act regarding open meetings, as well as the company’s freedom of speech.

While that argument was strong enough for Morrow to grant the restraining order against the city, constitutional law experts aren’t convinced the company has a case.

“I don’t think the cable company’s position has any legal merit,” said Terry Francke, general counsel for the California 1st Amendment Coalition. “Neither the 1st Amendment, the Brown Act or the Communications Act gives cable companies the basis for insisting on videotaping meetings simply because they are somehow under municipal control.”

The city, which has allowed cable representatives to attend the meetings without cameras, maintains the company is violating rules of the City Council, and that the sessions are a research tool, not a public meeting as described by the Brown Act.

Because the city can only use information collected from the workshops to renegotiate its cable franchise contracts, officials argue that cable operators are motivated to influence the outcome of the sessions, which could potentially cost them millions of dollars.

“You can’t expect the cable company and the city to agree on something that may cost them millions and millions of dollars,” said City Councilman Sandy Smith, adding that he doesn’t think Avenue TV Cable should be viewed as a disinterested third party.

Pushing George’s demand for public disclosure one step further, Friedman on Thursday said he will ask the City Council on Oct. 19 to authorize that all discussions between the city and both cable operators be conducted in front of the camera, rather than behind closed doors.

While George and Smith welcomed the camera to the bargaining table, George was concerned that exposing the details of the discussions might enable competitors to undercut his bid.

And though Friedman advocated greater public disclosure, he said he was not willing to allow the workshops to be recorded.

“Whatever happens [on Tuesday], we will deal with it the best way we can,” Friedman said. “And the council will never lose sight of the goal to negotiate the best rates and best services possible for the subscribers. That is really what this is all about.”

For council members Tingstrom and Monahan and some Ventura residents, it’s a matter of free speech.

“I am astonished that the city would be taking this approach,” said Ursula Britton, a Century subscriber who wants the workshops to be cablecast. “I have to wonder what has happened to the 1st Amendment in the city of Ventura.”