Report Title:

PEG Access Cable Television

Description:

Establishes independent management of the PEG access organizations.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

493

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO PUBLIC, EDUCATION, AND GOVERNMENT ACCESS ORGANIZATIONS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The State has long supported providing public, education, and government cable channel access to the residents of this State. The State, in its role as grantor of cable television franchises, has required each cable company to provide public, education, and government channels, and to fund them from its gross revenues. The State also played a major role in the formation of the access organizations and gave itself the ability to appoint a majority of the board of each access organization.

The legislative reference bureau warned of the dangers of state over-involvement with the access organizations in its 1995 study, Public, Education, and Government Cable Television Access in Hawai`i: Unscrambling the Signals. The office of information practices issued a recent opinion letter in which it concluded that `Olelo (on Oahu) and Ho`ike (on Kauai) needed to comply with the Uniform Information Practices Act because the State was so entwined with them that they were, for that purpose, a state agency.

The legislature finds that it is inappropriate to have access organizations so closely tied to the State that they are considered state agencies. The purpose of this Act is to cut some of the ties that have bound the access organizations to the State, particularly control over board selection, to allow the access organization to function as the independent agencies they were meant to be, and alleviate potential state First Amendment liability for actions of the access organizations.

SECTION 2. Section 440G-8.2, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (f) to read as follows:

"(f) The cable operator shall designate three or more channels for public, educational, or governmental use. The director shall designate and contract with an access organization for each county to manage these channels. The director shall determine the percentage of franchise fee, not to exceed five per cent, to be transmitted by the cable operator to the access organization for the development, operation, supervision, management, production, and cablecasting of programs on the public, education, and government channels. The director also may establish additional fees to be paid by the cable operator to the access organizations as capital contributions.

All assets of the access organization shall be held in trust for the purpose of providing public, education, and government cable programming to the public. If an access organization loses its contract, the access organization shall turn over all assets held in trust, including unspent funding, to its successor access organization.

The bylaws of the access organizations shall provide for a method of selecting board members independently of the department and the cable operator."

SECTION 3. Not later than four months of the effective date of this Act, each access organization in the State shall:

(1) Adopt bylaws to provide for a method of selecting or electing, or both, board members independently of the State and the cable companies; and

(2) Select or elect those members not later than six months after the effective date of this Act.

If an access organization fails to select or elect an independent board within this time period, all directors shall be immediately discharged and the duties of the access organization shall be turned over to the relevant cable company. The cable company shall operate the public, education, and government access channels as though it were an access organization under this chapter, holding all assets in trust, until a successor access organization is designated by the department.

SECTION 4. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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