To the extent permitted by law, and in order to fulfill a public, educational and governmental access policy that will facilitate the long range needs of the city, each cable operator shall provide at its own expense 1 PEG channel under the control of the city. The following shall apply to the PEG channel:
(A) The city is solely responsible for the content it provides over the PEG channel. The cable operator shall not exercise any editorial control over any programming of the PEG channel, and shall also not be subject to any civil or criminal liability for any programs carried on the PEG channel.
(B) The PEG channel may be placed on any tier of service available to all subscribers, including the digital tier. The city shall provide programming on the PEG channel to occupy 70% of the hours between 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. for any 12 consecutive week period. The cable operator shall provide written notice to the city in the event that the above programming levels are not maintained or if the city does not adequately use the channel. If the programming is not restored to occupy 70% of the hours between 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. within a 1 week period within 30 days of written notice, the cable operator reserves the right to have the channel returned to the cable operator for the cable operator's use. If at any later time, which must be at least 1 year from the return of the PEG channel to the cable operator, the city desires to utilize the PEG channel, it may notify the cable operator of its desire to do so, and the PEG channel shall be made available to the city within 30 days of the request. The above programming requirements shall apply with respect to continuance of the PEG channel by the city.
(C) If the city is utilizing the PEG channel, signal input location shall be provided at City Hall. Only those signal input locations actually being used shall be required.
(D) Cable operators may interconnect their cable systems for the purpose of sharing PEG access programming, provided that the cable operators are able to reach agreement for the interconnection. Nothing in this section should be construed as requiring a cable operator to add additional PEG channels.
(Ord. 4016, § 1, 12-17-2019)