LAKEPORT — The county supervisors again continued their discussion of whether to allow a pass-through charge to cable subscribers to benefit Channel 8, following a roughly hour-long debate on the issue Tuesday morning.
Instead, the Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) directed staff to ask state officials to provide a legal opinion about how Proposition 26 impacts fees for public, educational and governmental (PEG) television access stations.
“I think we need clarity,” District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith said at the Lake County Courthouse.
The proposed ordinance under consideration would provide for a fee of 1 percent of a cable operator”s gross revenues to support the PEG station. The cost would be passed through to Mediacom cable subscribers.
The debate could hinge on whether the BOS finds the charge is a tax that requires voter approval or a type of fee that qualifies as an exception under Proposition 26, which voters passed in November 2010.
“The possible exception that could be determined to be applicable is to treat this as a franchise fee charged to Mediacom for the use of county property,” County Counsel Anita Grant said.
The supervisors delayed their discussion two weeks ago to allow Grant time to research how Proposition 26 affects charges to support PEG channels. The relationship has not been legally tested since the law”s passage, Grant said Tuesday.
“There are valid views on both sides of the aisle here,” she added.
And differing opinions became a theme during the BOS discussion.
“It”s always been linked with franchise fees, so I would think that the board could easily find that”s the case,” District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing said.
BOS Chair Rob Brown disagreed, saying, “I”m sure if we were to stretch hard enough, we would be able to get around the law, but I don”t choose to do that.”
Joyce Overton, PEG channel representative and Clearlake councilwoman, contended the proposal was not a tax under Proposition 26.
“PEG station is only viewed by people who have cable. We only charge the people who have cable. That is a user fee; that is not a tax,” she told the BOS.
Overton said Channel 8 would use the funds to purchase new equipment and hire a professional manager.
After Overton spoke, a handful of people expressed opinions on both sides of the debate.
The biggest showman was Lakeport resident Phil Mathewson, who dressed in 18th century garb, read from a scroll and invoked the American Revolution-era motto “no taxation without representation” while opposing the PEG charge.
“Let us not burden the subscribers with more fees, penalties. It”s unjust. It”s uncalled for, so use clear reasoning in your judgments and stop thinking of ways to spend money,” he said.
Mediacom”s legal counsel argues the proposal constitutes a tax subject to voter approval, Grant said.
In the end, the BOS gave consensus to direct Grant to request input from the state Attorney General”s Office. The supervisors did not set a date for a future discussion of the proposal, which they began debating last fall.
In other business, the BOS supported sending a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown in opposition of Senate Bill 1221, which would ban the use of dogs while hunting bears and bobcats.
Later, the supervisors unanimously approved a Lake County Sheriff”s Office request to award a bid for upgrades to the central dispatch server and network infrastructure. The discussion was taken up as an extra item.
Department of Homeland Security funding originally allocated for a fire records management system will pay for the nearly $116,000 in improvements.
During citizen”s input, CAL FIRE representatives provided an update about the Scotts Fire. They also thanked county fire agencies for assisting in the response and said investigators are actively working to determine what caused the blaze.
The supervisors expressed their appreciation to all of the firefighters battling the fire.
“Well done. This had a potential of being an absolute disaster and crews averted it,” District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock said.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. Reach him at 263-5636, ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com. Follow his Board of Supervisors coverage on Twitter, @JeremyDWalsh or #LakeBOS.
