Pacifica Municipal Code Art. 1 Authority and Definitions

(a) The short title of this chapter shall be "The Pacifica Cable Television Franchise Regulation Law".

(b) The intent of the Council in adopting this chapter is to establish procedures and standards for the granting and terminating of franchises for cable television systems which operate in the City and, further, to establish appropriate standards for the protection of the subscribers and users of such systems and the protection of easements and rights-of-way, and to regulate the operations of franchises for the purpose of protecting and promoting the public health, safety, and welfare.

(c) The authority under which this chapter is enacted includes Sections 53066 and 53066.1 of the Government Code of the State, the Cable Act, and the Rules and Regulations of the Federal Communication Commission.

(d) This chapter shall be applicable to any application for a new franchise or for the renewal of an existing franchise received prior to May 14, 1986.

(§ 2, Ord. 461-86, eff. May 14, 1986)

For the purposes of this chapter, the following terms, phrases, words, abbreviations, and their derivations shall have the meaning given in this section. When not inconsistent with the context, words used in the present tense shall include the future tense, words in the plural number shall include the singular number, and words in the singular number shall include the plural number. The word "shall" is mandatory, and the word "may" is permissive.

(a) "Cable Act" shall mean the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, Public Law No. 98-549, 98 Stat. 2779 (1984).

(b) "City" shall mean the City of Pacifica, a political subdivision of the State of California.

(c) "Council" shall mean the City Council of the City of Pacifica, State of California.

(d) "City Manager" shall mean the Pacifica City Manager, or any designee thereof.

(e) "Franchise" shall mean and include any authorization granted pursuant to this chapter in terms of a franchise, privilege, permit, license, or otherwise to construct, operate, and maintain a cable system within the City. Any such authorization, in whatever form granted, shall not mean and include any license or permit required for the privilege of transacting and carrying on a business within the City as required by other laws of the City.

(f) "Person" shall mean any natural person, firm, corporation, association, syndicate, joint stock corporation, partnership, company, governmental entity or other organization of any kind.

(g) "Grantee" shall mean the person, firm, or corporation granted a franchise by the Council pursuant to this chapter and the lawful successor, transferee, or assignee of such person, firm, or corporation.

(h) "Street" shall mean the surface of and the space above and below any street, road, highway, freeway, utility right-of-way, or any other easement which now or hereafter exists for the provision of public or quasi-public services to residential or other properties and in which the City is expressly or impliedly authorized or empowered to permit use for the installation and operation of a cable television system.

(i) "Property of the grantee" shall mean all property owned, installed, or maintained within the City by a grantee in the conduct of a cable television system business under the authority of a franchise granted pursuant to this chapter.

(6) "Subscriber" or "user" shall mean any person or entity receiving, lawfully and for consideration, any service of the grantee's cable television system.

(k) "Cable communications system" or "cable system" or "CATV system" shall mean a facility consisting of a set of closed transmission paths and associated signal generation, reception, and control equipment which is designed to provide cable service which includes video programming and which is provided to multiple subscribers within a community, but such term shall not include those facilities excluded in subsection (6) of Section 602 of the Cable Act.

(l) "Gross annual revenue" shall mean all cash, goods, services, credits, property of any kind or nature, or other consideration received directly by a grantee arising from or attributable to the sale or exchange of cable services by a grantee within the City or in any way derived from the operation of its system within the City, including, but not limited to, basic service, monthly fees, optional service or pay cable fees, installation and reconnection fees, local advertising revenues, leased channel fees, and converter rentals or sales. "Gross annual revenue" shall also include any of such revenues received directly by an affiliate, subsidiary, parent, or other entity in which the grantee has a financial interest, provided that the gross annual revenues of such entities, including the grantee, will not include revenue which has already been accounted for in calculating the gross annual revenues.

"Gross annual revenue" shall not include any taxes on services furnished by the grantee imposed upon any subscriber or user by the State, City, or other governmental unit and collected by the grantee on behalf of such governmental unit, converter deposits, refunds to subscribers by the grantee, revenue from the sale, exchange, or cablecast of any programming developed for community use or institutional users, or amounts collected by the grantee from its subscribers and passed directly on to any public access entity with which the grantee has entered into an agreement to make such payments.

(m) "Channel" shall mean a frequency band, as defined in subsection (3) of Section 602 of the Cable Act, capable, pursuant to the standards or guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission, of delivering a television channel.

(§ 2, Ord. 461-86, eff. May 14, 1986)