from: Paul Gardner - via Free Press [1]

Minnesota Video Franchise Bill in Legislature

From State Rep. Paul Gardiner (Minn.), January 4, 2008

[Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Rep. Paul Gardiner (Minn. D-53).]

Town hall meeting: With the legislative session coming up on February 12th, Senator Rummel and I will be holding a town hall meeting to meet with constituents on Wednesday, January 23rd at 7:00 p.m. at Lino Lakes City Hall. Directions are on the home page of the Lino Lakes web site.

On Thursday evening, I met with the Lexington City Council to discuss major issues coming before the legislature and to hear of those issues that affect the city. And here they are!

* Cable franchising: A bill in the legislature would create a statewide cable franchising system to theoretically create more competition (and possibly lower prices) for cable services. For example, Qwest would be able to have the right to enter the cable market to compete with Comcast in our area without having to negotiate individual franchise arrangements with local cable access commissions (like CTV 15 and North Metro 15). Local cable commissions are concerned that, as written, the bill will drastically cut the “PEG fees” that support local cable programming. They are also concerned that they will lose control over the franchising process but only wealthier communities with lots of cable consumers will get the benefits.