(a) Whereas cable communications services have traditionally been limited to television programming primarily for the purposes of entertainment, advancing technology permits the delivery of a new generation of interactive services which invade non-entertainment commercial fields and may extend from the provision of burglar alarm services to services which permit the subscriber to shop or bank from his or her home and receive a vast array of professional, technical, educational, and other information, to medical, fire protection, and other emergency services, and to types of services which are yet unidentified.
(b) Such services promise significant benefit to the Yolo County community. They also potentially generate regulatory needs, the exact nature and scope of which are impossible to predict, and the enforceability of which could be time consuming and expensive should a grantee refuse to comply. The need to regulate could extend to:
(1) Potentially unfair and unlawful competitive practices by a grantee in operating and utilizing the cable communications system to provide services;
(2) Inadequate maintenance or repair by the grantee of the cable communications system;
(3) Invasion of the privacy of subscribers;
(4) Unethical or unfair business practices in relation to subscribers or others; and
(5) A variety of other regulatory measures which are necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of inhabitants of the Yolo County community.
(c) The provisions of this chapter address such issues by, with few exceptions, placing no limit upon the services which a grantee may provide, mandating few services, prescribing general duties and responsibilities in relation to future public interest issues, and making no attempt, with few exceptions, to limit the services which a grantee may provide to those which may be listed in the grantee’s proposal, and reserving broad authority to amend the provisions of this article under Section 11-1.410 of Article 4 of this chapter.
(d) The purposes of this chapter and this article are to:
(1) Reserve and vest broad regulatory authority in the County in order to enable it to enact future regulations which are tailored to address the problems requiring regulation and to avoid sensitive constitutional issues which may arise in attempts to regulate the operation of a cable communications system; and
(2) Establish general regulatory guidelines defining the rights, duties, and responsibilities of a grantee and the County which may be made more specific, expanded, or otherwise modified to meet future regulatory needs by regulations enacted by the County or the amendment of this article. (§ 1, Ord. 961, eff. October 27, 1983)