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(A) The grantee shall, concurrently with filing of an acceptance of award of any franchise granted under this chapter, file with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors and at all times thereafter maintain in full force and effect for the term of the franchise or any renewal thereof, at the grantee’s sole expense, a corporate surety bond in a company authorized to do business in the state and in a form approved by the District Attorney in the amount of $25,000, renewable annually and conditioned upon the faithful performance of the grantee and upon the further condition that in the event the grantee shall fail to comply with any one or more of the provisions of this chapter, or of any franchise issued to the grantee hereunder, there shall be recoverable jointly and severally from the principal and surety of the bond any damages or loss suffered by the county as a result thereof, including the full amount of any compensation, indemnification or cost of removal or abandonment of any property of the grantee as prescribed hereby which may be in default, plus a reasonable allowance for attorney’s fees and costs, up to the full amount of the bond; the condition to be a continuing obligation for the duration of the franchise and any renewal thereof and thereafter until the grantee has liquidated all of its obligations with the county that may have arisen from its exercise of any privilege therein granted. The bond shall provide that 30 days’ prior written notice of intention now to renew, cancellation or material change, be given to the county.
(B) Neither the provisions of this section, nor any bond accepted by the county pursuant hereto, nor any damages recovered by the city thereunder, shall be construed to excuse faithful performance by the grantee or limit the liability of the grantee under any franchise issued hereunder or for damages either to the full amount of the bond or otherwise.
(1966 Code, § 6A-21) (Ord. 312, § 21; Ord. 967, §§ 3, 4, 2018; Ord. 968, §§ 3, 4, 2018)
(A) The grantee shall indemnify and save harmless the county, its officers and employees from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, suits and proceedings by others, against all liability to others, including, but not limited to any liability for damages by reason of or arising out of any failure by the grantee to secure consent from the owners, authorized distributors or licensees of programs to be delivered by the grantee’s CATV system, and against any loss, cost, expense and damages resulting therefrom, including reasonable attorney’s fees, arising out of the exercise or enjoyment of its franchise.
(B) The grantee shall indemnify and save harmless the county, its officers, boards, commissions, agents and employees from and against any and all liability claims, demands, actions, suits and proceedings by others, for loss or damage, for personal injury, death and property damage, occasioned by the operations of grantee under this chapter and any franchise granted hereunder; and the grantee shall at all times during the existence of any franchise granted hereunder, maintain in full force and effect, at its own cost and expense, a general comprehensive liability insurance policy protecting the county and all persons against liability for loss or damage for personal injury, death and property damage, occasioned by the operation of grantee under this chapter and any franchise granted hereunder, with minimum liability limits of $300,000 for personal injury or death of any one person, $500,000 for personal injury or death of two or more persons in any one occurrence, and $100,000 for damage to property resulting from any one occurrence. The grantee shall, concurrently with the filing of an acceptance of award of any franchise granted under this chapter, file with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors either a copy of the policy or a certificate of insurance evidencing the same in a form satisfactory to the District Attorney. The policy of insurance, and any certificate evidencing the same, shall contain a contractual liability endorsement specifically extending the policy to cover the liability assumed by grantee under this division, and shall also contain a provision that the policy may not be cancelled except after 30 days notice in writing to be given to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors.
(1966 Code, § 6A-22) (Ord. 312, § 22; Ord. 967, §§ 3, 4, 2018; Ord. 968, §§ 3, 4, 2018)
(A) At all reasonable times, the grantee shall permit any duly authorized representative of the county to examine all property of the grantee, together with any appurtenant property of the grantee situated within or without the county, and to examine and transcribe any and all maps and other records kept or maintained by the grantee or under its control which deal with the operations, affairs, transactions or property of the grantee with respect to its franchise. If any such maps or records are not kept in the county, or upon reasonable request made available in the county, and if the Board of Supervisors shall determine that an examination thereof is necessary or appropriate, then all travel and maintenance expense necessarily incurred in making the examination shall be paid by the grantee.
(B) The grantee shall prepare and furnish to the Road Commissioner, at the time and in the form prescribed by the officer, the reports with respect to its operations, affairs, transactions or property, as may be reasonably necessary or appropriate to the performance of any of the rights, functions or duties of the county or any of its officers in connection with the franchise.
(C) The grantee shall, at all times, make and keep in its local office full and complete plans and records showing the exact location of all CATV system equipment installed or in use in streets and other public places in the county.
(D) The grantee shall file with the Road Commissioner on or before the last day in June of each year, a current map or set of maps drawn to scale, showing all CATV system equipment installed and in place in streets and other public places in the county on base maps approved by the Road Commissioner.
(E) When any portion of the CATV system is to be installed on public utility poles and facilities, certified copies of all agreements for the joint use of poles and facilities shall be filed with the Road Commissioner.
(1966 Code, § 6A-23) (Ord. 312, § 23; Ord. 967, §§ 3, 4, 2018; Ord. 968, §§ 3, 4, 2018)
The CATV system shall be installed and maintained in accordance with the highest and best accepted standards of the CATV industry, to the effect that subscribers shall receive the highest quality service technically possible. In determining the satisfactory extent of the standards, the following, among others, shall be considered as minimum requirements:
(A) The CATV system shall be installed using all band equipment capable of passing the entire VHF television and FM broadcast spectrum (i.e., no less than 50 to 220 MHZ, including the so-called “mid-band” region); and further, it shall have the capability of converting the UHF television broadcasting range to channels between 50 and 220 MHZ for distribution to subscribers.
(B) Signals shall be transmitted from the antenna origination point to all subscriber tap-off points, regardless of location on the distribution portion of the system, without the introduction of any noticeable degradation of color fidelity, picture intelligence or audio distortion. Color phase shift introduced by system components between the off-the-air receiving antennas and the customer tap-off point shall not exceed two degrees under any circumstances, on a cumulative basis.
(C) The system and all equipment in the system shall be designed and rated for continuous 24 hour per day operation.
(D) (1) The system shall provide a signal level of not less than 2,000 microvolts, as measured across 72 ohms at the subscriber’s television receiver, on the highest channel (by frequency) carried by the system and not less than 1,500 microvolts on the lowest channel (by frequency) carried on the system to all color television receivers connected to the system. No channel shall exceed the highest and lowest values for the highest and lowest channels by more than .5 db for more than 50% of the time. The system shall provide equivalent service levels of not less than 1,500 microvolts on the highest channel and not less than 1,000 microvolts on the lowest channel (both as measured across the 72 ohm drop cable) to all black and white receivers connected to the system.
(2) The system shall provide a minimum signal of not less than 200 microvolts on the lowest intensity FM channel (as measured at the customer service drop termination point) delivered, and a maximum signal intensity of not more than three db greater level than the lowest intensity FM channel delivered by the cable, (i.e., all FM channels carried by the system shall be flat to within three db from the lowest and highest FM channels carried, and the lowest of these shall be not lower than 200 microvolts across 72 ohms).
(E) The system design and operation shall exhibit a signal plus noise, to noise, ratio of not less than 40 decibels as measured at the extremities of all trunk and customer distribution lines covering the service area or areas.
(F) Plum modulation of the picture (video) carrier shall not exceed 5% at any point in the system.
(G) All active components in the system shall have a VSW11 not to exceed one and one-half to one. All passive devices in the system shall have input, output and return losses of not less than 20 db.
(H) The system shall maintain a minimum video carrier to aural carrier ratio of 15 db and a maximum video carrier to aural carrier ratio of 18 db for all television channels. This video carrier to aural carrier relationship shall be established in such a manner that the color subcarrier, if present, to video carrier relationship shall not be degraded below its as-received off-the-air ratio by more than 0.25 db.
(I) Carriage of so-called local channels shall be accomplished in such a way that these channels, as delivered to the system subscribers, if delivered on-channel, shall be at least 40 db stronger as measured at the customer receiver tuner input terminals than any stray direct pickup from these channels. If this is not possible, channel conversion of these stations shall be made to utilize other regular VHF channels, mid-band or octave channels for the delivery of these stations to the customer’s receivers.
(J) (1) The system shall be designed in such a way that 20 channel operation is possible at the outset, utilizing either mid-band frequencies or octave frequency groupings. If so-called mid-band frequencies for cable carriage of one or more channels are utilized, it shall be demonstrated that the carriage is possible in the service area or areas without introduction into the cable transmission lines of direct pick up from radio services operating in the mid-band region, which would tend to interfere with the carriage of one or more proposed television channels in this frequency range.
(2) If the octave-frequency grouping method of providing spectrum space for additional channels (more than the 12 regular VHF channels) is utilized, it shall be demonstrated that the equipment is operational and available for delivery.
(K) The system shall be capable of producing a picture, whether in black and white or in color, which is undistorted, free from ghost images and accompanied with proper sound on typical standard production TV sets in good repair, and as good as the state of the art allows.
(L) The facilities used by the grantee shall be capable of distributing color TV signals, and when the signals the grantee distributes are received in color they shall be distributed in color.
(M) The system shall transmit signals of adequate strength to produce good pictures with good sound at all outlets without causing cross-modulation in the cables or interfering with other electrical or electronic systems.
(N) In the event the Board of Supervisors determines that the quality of service being rendered by the grantee is not equal to comparable systems delivering service in the state, the grantee, upon written notice from the Board of Supervisors, shall with due diligence, do whatever is necessary to bring its service up to such standards.
(O) The grantee shall, at all times during the term of any franchise granted under this chapter, at its own cost and expense, properly and in good workmanlike manner, install and maintain adequate shielding, filtering and grounding at affected installations within the CATV system to eliminate television interference encountered from fundamental frequency overload by radio amateur transmissions which are in compliance with the Federal Communications Commission regulations.
(1966 Code, § 6A-24) (Ord. 312, § 24; Ord. 967, §§ 3, 4, 2018; Ord. 968, §§ 3, 4, 2018)
(A) When not otherwise prescribed herein, all matters herein required to be filed with the county shall be filed with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors.
(B) The grantee shall, without charge, provide all subscriber services of its system, including a multiple connection service to all public and non-profit private schools, county Sheriff’s offices and substations, county fire stations, county recreation centers and such other buildings owned or controlled by the county, which shall, from time to time, be designated by the Board of Supervisors, provided the buildings are located within the service area or areas of any franchise granted to the grantee under this chapter, or within the service area or areas of any other franchise granted to the grantee within the county, including incorporated areas thereof, by any other legislative body or agency thereof. The grantee shall install, without charge to the county or the public or private schools, up to 200 feet of service connection from the transmission cable otherwise maintained or required to be maintained by the grantee for the service of paying subscribers of the grantee. The county, or any such public or private schools shall pay to the grantee the costs of all labor and materials supplied by the grantee for the installation of any service connection in excess of the initial 200 feet.
(C) In the case of any emergency or disaster, the grantee shall, upon request of the Board of Supervisors, make available its facilities to the county for emergency use during the emergency or disaster period.
(D) The grantee shall not engage, directly or indirectly, in the business of selling, leasing, renting, furnishing, providing, repairing or servicing any television, radio or other receiving apparatus or any component part thereof within the county, and such prohibition shall extend and apply to the officers and directors of the grantee, to all general and limited partners of the grantee, to any person or combination of persons owning, holding or controlling 5% or more of any corporate stock or other ownership interest of the grantee, or any affiliated or subsidiary entity, owned or controlled by the grantee, or in which any officer, director, stockholder, general or limited partner or person or group of persons holding or controlling any ownership interest in the grantee, shall own, hold or control 5% or more of any corporate stock or other ownership interest; and the prohibition shall likewise apply to any person, firm or corporation acting or serving in the capacity of a holding or controlled company of the grantee.
(E) The grantee shall be prohibited from deleting, revising, adding to or substituting any program of any television or FM radio broadcast station carried by the grantee, whether with or without the consent of the station, without the prior written approval for good cause shown of the Board of Supervisors and then only upon such terms as the Board of Supervisors shall prescribe.
(F) The grantee shall maintain an office within the county so that CATV maintenance service shall be promptly available to subscribers upon telephone request.
(G) No person, firm or corporation in the existing service area of the grantee shall be arbitrarily refused service; provided, however, that the grantee shall not be required to provide service to any subscriber who does not pay the applicable connection fee or monthly service charge.
(H) (1) Before the grantee shall provide service to any subscriber, the grantee shall obtain a signed contract from the subscriber containing a provision substantially as follows:
“Subscriber understands that in providing service grantee is to make use of public rights-of-way within the county, and that the continued use of these public rights-of-way is in no way guaranteed. In the event the continued use of such rights-of-way is denied to grantee for any reason, grantee will make every reasonable effort to provide service over alternate routes. Subscriber agrees he or she will make no claim nor undertake any action against the county, its officers, its employees or grantee if a service to be provided by grantee hereunder is interrupted or discontinued because the continued use of the rights-of-way, is denied to grantee for any reason.”
(2) The form of the grantee’s contract with its subscribers shall be subject to approval of the District Attorney with respect to the inclusion of this provision.
(I) The grantee shall limit failures to a minimum by locating and correcting malfunctions promptly, but in no event longer than 24 hours after notice.
(J) The grantee shall render efficient service, make repairs promptly and interrupt service only for good cause and for the shortest time possible. The interruptions insofar as possible shall be preceded by notice and shall occur during periods of minimum use of the system.
(K) The grantee shall comply with all rules and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as they may be here applied, for the carriage and non-duplication protection of television stations and shall, within limitations as to its general capacity and the technical availability thereof, carry all television signals serving the general area.
(L) Upon termination of service to any subscriber, the grantee shall promptly remove all its facilities and equipment from the premises of the subscriber upon his or her request.
(1966 Code, § 6A-25) (Ord. 312, § 25; Ord. 967, §§ 3, 4, 2018; Ord. 968, §§ 3, 4, 2018)
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