Bill Engle, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item, has an article about HB 1131 introduced by Rep. Koch.
The bill says generally that a provider of video service can’t be required to pay a local franchise fee. The article reports that the bill would have the effect of eliminating the franchise fee that Comcast currently pays to the city of Richmond, a big chunk of which, in turn, goes to a local station, WCTV. Richmond mayor, Sally Hutton, made a statement that had some resonance with me as a guy with a local government bias: “what it boils down to is the state is continually trying to take money away from local governments. They try it every year.”
I expect Rep. Koch would say that he’s trying to get rid of a tax on someone trying to do business in the State. But, I’d say some sort of tax on cable providers is justified if they are using the public right of way, are able to benefit from eminent domain laws, and if there are laws in place insulating them from other cable providers stringing up their lines if they want to compete. Additionally, cutting local government revenue sources is problematic.
Your several points are correct. An unfortunate trend is that the state continues to increase its powers over local government and particularly in the revenue areas. While this tune may play well with some groups, the effects will be felt but with the blame mistakeningly lay at the local officials. The cost of unfunded mandates and direct reduction of revenue place us on an unfortunate path of serious reduction of local services. But the powers that be will simply reply that local government is too inefficient and too incompentent to handle affairs. But with the shining example of state administration who am I too question the collective wisdom of the legislature and the governor.