HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolution No. 2018-08COUNTY COUNCIL COUNTY OF KAUA’I o luti Ofl No.2018-08 RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE CHANGE OF PUBLIC,EDUCATION,AND GOVERNMENTAL PROGRAMMING CHANNEL NUMBERS BY SPECTRUM WHEREAS,Ho’ike Kauai Community Television (Ho’ike)is the public,education,and governmental (PEG)access provider in the County of Kaua’i,pursuant to an agreement with the State of Hawai’i Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs;and WHEREAS,Ho’ike,which has two hyper local cable channels and video on demand services achieves its mission of strengthening island voices and advancing community engagement through the airing of non-commercial programming with unique and local stories from hundreds of dedicated community producers;and WHEREAS,the County of Kaua’i has been producing live and tape-delayed cable programming covering the activities,events,meetings,and issues of the island on Ho’ike for more than twenty (20)years;and WHEREAS,televising County programs,such as gavel to gavel broadcasts of Kaua’i County Council meetings,which often involve the most controversial and important issues facing the community,is an effective means of ensuring free and open public access to information about our government;and WHEREAS,Charter Communications,Inc.,purchased Time Warner Cable,the parent company of Hawai’i’s Oceanic Time Warner Cable,in May 2016;and WHEREAS,Oceanic Time Warner Cable was officially renamed Spectrum in June 2017;and WHEREAS,Spectrum plans to change PEG programming channel numbers to high-numbered channels at are far from the basic and main traffic line-up;and WHEREAS,this channel change will cause confusion and frustration for viewers and force community producers to rebrand their PEG programs to the new channel numbers which is a lengthy and costly process;and WHEREAS,viewers who do not acquire a special box to connect to their televisions will no longer have access to the PEG programming channels;and
WHEREAS,the Kaua’i County Council believes that changing long-standing PEG programming channel numbers would weaken media diversity,make government less accessible to the general public,and reduce community engagement;now,therefore,BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF KAUA’I,STATE OF HAWAI’I,that it hereby expresses its strong opposition to the change of public,educational,and governmental programming channel numbers by Spectrum;and BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that copies of this Resolution be transmitted to Bernard P.Carvalho,Jr.,Mayor,Catherine P.Awakuni Colon,Director of the State of Hawai’i,Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs,and Laurence Schott,Senior Director,Government Affairs,West Region,Charter Communications.Introduced by:MEL RAPOZO V:\RESOLUTIONS\2016-2018 TERM\Spectrum Number Change Hoike MR ET_ct.doc I~ap €xcu~b 3~ecu~b ~run x Qt~jock x 3aa~a~iia x i~ant≤Uiro x I~.a~iiakami x 3a~po~o x ~ukimura x ~ota1 7 0 0 0 €ertIfIcate ~f ~boptton fj~reIi~’certitp tijat 3ae~o1ution ~o.2018—08 ~iia~abopftb b~’tije Qtounctt of tije ~ountp of i~aua’i,~‘tatc of ~a~uai’i,Ii~ju’e,3aaua’i,~~February 21,2018 (A LI a4 QI~jairrnan &~r~fbtn~Q~fftcer ~RtCb February 22,2018