By Marty Gordon
Shentel has been the lone cable provider in the Town of Christiansburg over the past few years, but all of that is about to change. Tuesday night, the town council heard information about the feasibility of adding Comcast to the list of providers.
According to town spokesperson Melissa Demmitt, Comcast had approached the town about a franchise agreement to expand their service.
“Providers must have a franchise agreement to operate their cable systems in Christiansburg,” Demmitt said. “Franchise agreements allow providers to operate a cable system in the public rights-of-way in return for certain benefits to the local government. These benefits include the payment of franchise fees, right-of-way protections and government access channels.”.
Comcast currently operates only in the eastern portion of town without a franchise agreement. The service was in existence when this area was brought into the town from unincorporated Montgomery County.
Like the agreement the town has with Shentel, Demmitt said, this would be a non-exclusive agreement, which would allow multiple providers to compete in the Christiansburg cable market.
“The agreement grants Comcast the right to own, construct, operate and maintain a cable system along the public rights-of-way,” Demmitt said. “The town would receive compensation as outlined in the agreement. If the town commences production of public educational and governmental (PEG) programming, Comcast shall provide a PEG capital support fee in the amount of six cents per month per subscriber in the service area, and the town would receive a consumer sales and use fee,” she said.
Members of the public were allowed to address the issue, but no one spoke to the matter.
The council will officially vote on the agreement at its next meeting on February 25.
In other matters, the governmental body listened to IT Director Craig Hatmaker about upgrades to the council chamber’s audio and visual capabilities. Hatmaker said that in an effort to make meetings more open to the public, he would like to upgrade several areas of the room at an estimated cost of $20,000.
“We have had several problems like dropouts of the audio during the meeting because the audio box is located beneath the council members’ desks,” Hatmaker said. “Sometimes, the box is kicked and we lose the audio.”
The staff would like to move the audio box to a storage closet in the room. In addition, plans call for the audio at the podium used by the public during comments to be improved.
“We can solve several of the problems with a remote mixer and five stationary cameras to capture video from other parts of the room other than the council,” Hatmaker said. “We can add a second computer screen so the public can see visual items from other parts of the room.
The list presented would include the purchase and installation of all five items. Council approved the expenditure by a 6-0 vote. Hatmaker said he hopes to have many of the items installed within the next 30 days.
The town council also approved street closures for the September Wilderness Trail Festival with no changes from last year.
In addition, a change in the town’s small purchase policy was approved to push the maximum up to $10,000 for a single quote. At least one local vendor will have to be solicited, and the new top scale will allow department heads to seek bids without having to bring the matter to the council.
According to Town Manager Randy Wingfield, the lower amount of $1,500, which had been approved in December, was causing some problems. “We found that the lower limit had taken much more time than anticipated to complete a procurement, and in a number of instances, it eliminated a local vendor altogether due to the differences in price,” Wingfield said.
