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(a) The grantee shall provide insurance as specified in the franchise agreement.
(b) With respect to the initial construction of the cable system, or any significant project to upgrade or rebuild more than fifty percent of the cable system, grantee shall provide to the grantor a construction performance and construction completion bond (herein referred to as the construction completion bond), with a surety reasonably approved by the grantor's Solicitor, in an amount equal to ten percent of the applicable estimated construction cost. Such amount, however, shall not exceed two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000). With respect to the initial construction of the cable system or the upgrade or rebuild project, when regular subscriber service is available to seventy-five percent of occupied dwelling units, the amount of the bond shall be reduced by fifty percent of the original amount. On the one-year anniversary of the initial construction of the cable system or the upgrade or rebuild project, as the case may be, the bond may be canceled.
(c) Within sixty days of the passage of the ordinance adopting the franchise agreement, the grantee shall deposit with the grantor a surety bond or letter of credit in the amount of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) in a form reasonably acceptable to the Solicitor of the grantor (hereinafter referred to as the performance bond). The performance bond shall be available to insure the faithful performance by the grantee of provisions of this chapter and the franchise agreement, other than with respect to construction, upgrading or rebuilding projects covered herein, but including the obligation to remove the above-ground portion of the cable system upon revocation or termination of the franchise as set forth herein. The performance bond shall be maintained at fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) during the entire term of the franchise agreement, regardless of withdrawals which may be made under this section. In the event of a default by the grantee in any of its obligations under the agreement, other than completion of construction, which default is not cured within thirty days after notice by the grantor to the grantee of such default (or such longer time as is necessary to cure, so long as the grantee commences to cure within thirty days and diligently pursues cure), the grantor may levy on the performance bond upon notifying the grantee of the amount of such charge. The grantor may also levy upon the performance bond for sums due for penalties under Sections 814.19(e) and 814.26(g). The rights reserved to the grantor with respect to the performance bond are in addition to all other rights of the grantor, at law or in equity.
(Ord. 1997-5. Passed 5-6-97.)
(a) The grantee shall at all times maintain and make available to the grantor for inspection upon written request within two weeks:
(1) A full, current and complete set of plans, records and "as-built" maps showing the location of the cable television system installed or in use in the Village, exclusive of subscriber service drops and equipment provided in subscribers' homes, to be updated periodically as warranted. (The grantee shall furnish two complete sets of route maps to the grantor, which are applicable to the franchise area, upon completion of the same, which shall be available for public inspection during normal business hours at a location designated by the grantee or at an office of the grantor.)
(2) A list of the grantee's services, rates and channel lineups;
(3) Subject to applicable law regarding subscriber privacy, all subscriber records and information, provided, however, that nothing shall prohibit the grantee from destroying certain subscriber records in the ordinary course of business in accordance with the grantee's document management program;
(4) A statistical compilation of service calls provided by the appropriate grantee category, including a description of the problem, the action taken and whether the matter has been resolved, and of other subscriber billing complaints. Nothing herein shall require the grantee to maintain statistics regarding subscriber inquiries or questions concerning the company's billing practices, programming, policies or procedures.
(5) An accurate and comprehensive file of any and all complaints regarding the cable system, in a manner consistent with the privacy rights of subscribers, and the grantee's actions in response to those complaints. Complaints shall not include routine billing inquiries, disagreements with company policies or practices or inquiries regarding individual programs or program services carried or not carried by the grantee's cable system.
(b) The grantee shall also make available to the grantor, upon written request, the following information:
(1) A revenue statement, certified by any officer of the cable operator;
(2) A summary of the previous year's activities in development of the cable system, including, but not limited to, services begun or discontinued during the reporting year, channel changes, the number of subscribers added or terminated for each class of service, all construction activity and total homes passed;
(3) A list of the grantee's operating managers, officers, members of its boards of directors and other principals of the grantee;
(4) A list of stockholders or other equity investors holding five percent or more of the voting interest in the grantee and its parent, subsidiary and affiliated corporations and other entities, if any, unless the parent is a public corporation whose annual reports are publicly available, in which case a copy of the annual report shall be submitted; and
(5) An executive summary which shall include information concerning customer complaints for the preceding twelve months. Such reports shall be maintained by category. Complaints shall not include routine billing inquiries, disagreements with company policies or practices or inquiries regarding individual programs or program services carried or not carried by the grantee's cable system.
The grantee shall make available to the grantor such records upon written request no more than one time per year. Records required by paragraph (b)(2) hereof shall be made available to the grantor within thirty days. All other information shall be made available to the grantor within seven days.
(c) Upon at least five business days written notice, and during normal business hours, or, in case of emergency, upon demand, the grantee shall permit examination by any duly authorized representative of the grantor, of any and all franchise property and facilities, together with any appurtenant property and facilities of the grantee situated within or without the Village, and any and all records relating to the franchise, provided they are necessary to enable the grantor to carry out its regulatory responsibilities under local, State and Federal law, this chapter and the franchise agreement. Such records include all books, records, maps, plans, financial statements, service complaint logs, performance test results, records of requests for service and other like materials of the grantee. The grantee shall have the right to be present at any such examination.
(d) If any of the records described in this chapter or the franchise agreement are proprietary in nature or must be kept confidential by State, Federal or local law, then upon written request by the grantee, such information requested during an inspection shall be treated as confidential, making it available for inspection purposes only to those persons who must have access to perform their duties on behalf of the Village, including, but not limited to, the Treasurer and the Solicitor. To the extent that any Federal requirement for privacy applies to the information to be submitted, said law shall control.
(e) Copies of all petitions, applications, communications and reports submitted by the grantee, or on behalf of or relating to the grantee, to the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or any other Federal or State regulatory commission or agency having jurisdiction with respect to any matters affecting the cable system authorized pursuant to this chapter and any franchise, shall be made available to the grantor upon written request within two weeks. Copies of responses from the regulatory agencies to the grantee shall likewise be furnished to the Village upon request within two weeks. Upon written request by the grantor, the grantee shall make available to the grantor copies of all pleadings, applications, notifications, communications and documents of any kind, submitted by the grantee or its parent corporation(s) to, as well as copies of all decisions, correspondence to and from the grantee or its parent corporation(s) and actions by, any Federal, State or local courts, other regulatory agencies and other government bodies relating to the operations of the grantee's cable system within the franchise area. The grantee shall submit such documents to the grantor no later than thirty days after the written request.
(f) One copy of all reports and records mentioned in this chapter or in the franchise agreement shall be made available upon written request to the grantor within the time limits mentioned therein. All reports and records required under this chapter or the franchise agreement shall be furnished at the sole expense of the grantee, except as otherwise provided in this chapter or in the franchise agreement.
(g) The failure of the grantee to report or make information available upon written request as specified and within the time limits stated in this chapter or the franchise agreement shall, following notice and an opportunity to cure, subject the grantee to a penalty of fifty dollars ($50.00) per day. The grantee's liability to the grantor for such amount in such cases shall not be in lieu of, but in addition to, the remedies set forth in Section 814.99 for franchise violations.
(Ord. 1997-5. Passed 5-6-97.)
The grantee shall submit a written end of the year report to the grantor with respect to the preceding calendar year within 120 days of the end of that year. Such report shall contain a summary of the previous year's activities in the development of the cable system, including, but not limited to, services begun or discontinued during the reporting year and improvements to the system.
(Ord. 1997-5. Passed 5-6-97.)
(a) The grantee shall, at its cost, make available at an identified location inside an exterior wall of the public facilities to be set forth in an exhibit to the franchise agreement ("sites"), plus three additional facilities designated by the grantor (which must be nonprofit institutions), two fibers, in each case with not less than fifty feet of additional fiber extending inside the facility ("institutional network"). Use of the fibers provided by the grantee pursuant to this section will be limited to video and data transmissions between and among the facilities described in this section and any other facility attached to the institutional network under the terms of a franchise between the grantee and the political subdivision in which such facility is located. Any additional interior or exterior wiring or equipment necessary to utilize the institutional network shall be at the cost of the user. There shall be no cost to the grantor or the other designated sites for the use and maintenance of the institutional network. In addition to the Village, the grantee may provide telecommunications services to residential and other non-residential subscribers on such terms and at such rates as the grantee may in its discretion determine.
(b) Notwithstanding the foregoing, if technically feasible, the grantee shall interconnect the institutional network with other dedicated fiber, limited access institutional networks provided by other cable operators for the sole purpose of providing educational access programming between school districts and emergency agencies consisting of video or data transmissions, provided that such interconnections shall be limited to dedicated fiber, limited access, institutional networks servicing the municipalities and school districts to be listed in an exhibit to the franchise agreement and may consider other such interconnections requested by the grantor, and provided, further, that the grantee shall not be required to provide such an interconnection to a network located in a municipality in which it does not have a franchise, unless the user assumes the cost of the initial connection. All costs associated with the construction of the interconnections within the franchise area shall be the sole responsibility of the grantee. There shall be no cost to the grantor or the other designated sites for the use and maintenance of the institutional network. All other costs shall be the sole responsibility of the requesting party or the other cable operator.
(c) If the grantor or any of the sites has a presently existing network, service on such network will not be unreasonably interrupted during the building of the new system.
(Ord. 1997-5. Passed 5-6-97.)
(a) Following completion of the system upgrade/rebuild, the grantee shall make available to each of its subscribers who receive some or all of the services offered on the system, reception of at least three public, educational and government (PEG) access channels to be allocated among public, educational and government usage as determined by the grantor. The channels designated for access shall be provided by the grantee as a part of the basic cable service. The access channels shall be made available by the grantee for use by the Village and its citizens in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the Village or any lawfully designated person, group, organization or agency authorized by the Village for that purpose.
(b) To the extent that any access channel is not being used for the provision of non-commercial, public, educational or governmental access purposes, the grantee shall be permitted to use such channel(s) for the provision of other services, subject to any reasonable rules established by the Village regarding such use. The grantee's permitted use of any access channel made pursuant to this section shall cease within ninety days of the grantee's receipt of notice from the Village that such channel will again be used for public, educational or governmental access.
(c) Notwithstanding the above, the grantee may accommodate a request from the Village for additional access capacity made pursuant to Section 814.28(b) by combining more than one access use on a channel, provided that:
(1) It is technically and economically feasible for the grantee to do so;
(2) The scheduling needs of all users of the channel can be reasonably accommodated; and
(3) The access entity which requires use of the alternate channel must be able to access the alternate channel from the site where it normally originates playback of its programs and may not be required to transport tapes to a remote site for playback.
(d) However, the grantee shall provide an additional PEG channel for non-commercial public, educational or governmental broadcasts in the event that the three PEG channels provided under this section are then fully utilized. In no event shall the grantee be required to provide in excess of one additional access channel, and only after the cable system offers at least 150 channels. As used in this section, "fully utilized" means utilized for original, nonduplicative programming not less than eight hours per day, five days per week, for a period of ten consecutive weeks. The additional PEG channel provided under this section shall be reviewed annually by the grantee. Upon such annual review, the additional PEG channel will continue to be made available to the grantor to the extent that the PEG channels provided under this agreement (including the additional PEG channel(s)) are at least seventy percent fully utilized. To the extent that such capacity requirement is not met, the additional PEG channel shall be terminated, subject to reactivation at the request of the grantor upon demonstration by the grantor that the three original and any other additional PEG channels provided under this section are fully utilized, and to the annual review provided herein.
(e) The grantee shall provide free cable transmission facilities and free modulation equipment to introduce programming onto these transmission facilities by linking the below listed origination points with the head-end, or through hubs to the head-end, for distribution to all subscribers generally and for distribution to discrete audiences via scrambled signals and decoders at the origination points for such channels.
(f) The grantee is responsible for all head-end equipment essential to playback of programming for PEG access use in a location and under reasonable rules determined by the grantee. The grantee shall also be responsible for the operation and maintenance and all equipment necessary to perform those functions. The grantee shall also either provide a studio and equipment acceptable to the grantor for PEG access use or pay a fee in lieu of providing the same, equal to up to one percent of adjusted gross revenues (gross revenues above net of the franchise fee), as stated in the franchise agreement, to be placed by the grantor in a special fund for such PEG access purposes.
(g) The grantor shall be responsible for the operation of access facilities and equipment. In this regard, the grantor may delegate from time to time its responsibilities to others who then shall assume the responsibility of the grantor in accordance with the grantor's delegation. The grantor will develop reasonable rules regarding use of access facilities and equipment and determine the needs of the Village for public, educational and governmental access services. In this regard, the grantor shall regularly coordinate with grantee for the purpose of developing and maintaining reasonable access facilities.
(h) Costs of providing said facilities shall not be a credit against payment of the franchise fee imposed under the franchise agreement.
(Ord. 1997-5. Passed 5-6-97.)
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