The city of Chanhassen is financially healthier today as a result of city staff pursuing a financial audit of the city’s cable TV franchise agreement.
Without that audit, the city might still be humming along unaware that thousands of dollars – hundreds of thousands – were not being collected to support government programming.
It does appear that procedural errors at the front end of the agreement, which dates back to 1998, simply weren’t caught and the error kept compounding until 2009, when Mediacom made the first PEG fee payment in a decade.
Mediacom, by all accounts, has been proactive and cooperative in resolving the problem and chose not to contest unpaid fees that may have extended beyond statute of limitations.
The eye-popping $625,000 windfall for the city, however, should serve as another call to city officials to pay closer attention to the franchise agreement.
Last spring, when some residents were raising questions about cable TV standards, the prevailing sentiment of the City Council was to take a hands-off approach and to let the cable TV provider handle its own issues.
Franchise agreements allow cable companies to provide cable service in a city. Mediacom is the only provider in Chanhassen.
In the 2010 community survey, a majority of survey respondents gave scores of “fair” or “poor” to the quality of service available in the community. For a city that takes great pride in quality of life, that finding should be cause to take action, not take a back seat.
The agreement reached this week with Mediacom effectively puts an end to past accounting errors.
However, the cable franchise agreement will be up for renewal next year. City officials should place a high priority on crafting a new franchise that can pave the way for the best service possible for residents.
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