Supervisors to Get Progress Report, Hear From Citizens on Cable Agreement

Saturday, October 23, 2010

At their Tuesday evening meeting, James City County Supervisors will hear a presentation on how well the county has performed compared to 2010 objectives and they’ll open a public hearing to give residents a chance to comment on the cable television franchise agreement that’s currently being negotiated.

Progress is measured by completion of the county’s strategic management plan actions, and this year the county completed slightly more of what it set out to do over last year (94 percent goal completion this year versus 92 percent last year).

Some of fiscal year 2010’s goals that were met included using federal stimulus money for county projects and reducing the county’s carbon footprint.

Revising ordinances was a goal that’s been postponed so staff, citizens and supervisors can spend more time discussing the various revisions.

The county has other performance measures, including the number of structure fires, police crime clearance rates, foster care placements, zoning violations resolved, and public meetings viewed. The county improved its performance in each area versus last year in all but one category – foster care placements before age 18 remained at 100 percent (the same as last year).

Plans for 2011 include improving residential home energy performance, helping the elderly and disabled find housing, developing Freedom Park, using sustainable practices and retaining companies that graduate from the technology business incubator.

The public can view the county’s 2010 progress report on the county’s website to get a sense of the county's accomplishments over the year.

The county needs to renew its cable television franchise agreement with Cox Communications. The agreement only relates to cable service, not to telephone or internet services, and the county has no ability to regulate rates or programming. The county has limited ability to negotiate about some items such as technical standards; public access, education and government channel capital fees; connection to public facilities and customer service. The negotiations are expected to be complete by March 2011.

In late 2009, the county began the negotiation process with Cox and conducted a survey to find out what the community thinks of certain aspects of cable service in the county. Generally, most people surveyed said they were happy overall with their cable service and were satisfied with customer service. About 62 percent of respondents watch public access, education and government channels daily, weekly or monthly.

Cox recently submitted the first draft of the proposal, and supervisors will get an update on the negotiations at their work session prior to their meeting.

Residents can submit comments to Cox Cable Comments at (757) 886-4006 or by email to cablecomments@james-city.va.us.

Supervisors will meet at 7 p.m. in building F of the county government complex on Mounts Bay Road.