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9 <br />How many access channels will be provided for in the franchise <br />agreement? <br />How many more channels to trigger? <br />What to provide regarding pass-through costs? How to attribute different <br />costs? <br />He then offered the following "vision" f'or resolving the PEG issue: In the short <br />term, the County government will operate a public access channel and a <br />government access channel, while the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill <br />(UNC) continues to operate cable channel 4 as the educational access channel. <br />The County would secure its rights now through the franchise agreement to make <br />changes to the educational access arrangements for the future. Over the long <br />term, Mr, Patrick envisions a "real" local educational access channel being <br />developed through discussions between the County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and <br />local educational entities (e.g,, UNC, the future Orange County campus of <br />Durham Technological Community College, the two public school systems in the <br />county). Of course, those discussions would have to define the needs of the <br />community, and take the system architecture and costs into consideration, While <br />it does not make sense for the County to operate an educational channel today for <br />only ~,ooo unincorporated subscribers, the County needs the capability to do this <br />in the future. <br />Mr, Phillips pointed out that UNC's control of channel 4 is a "legacy issue" <br />remaining from when Village Cable Companies had the local cable franchise. All <br />four jurisdictions have educational access through channel 4, The channel's <br />current programming includes student government meetings, student-produced <br />shows, and foreign-language news from the non-profit broadcaster SCOLA. If <br />the local governments desired to broadcast specific alternative programming for <br />channel 4, then TWC would pre-empt the UNC programming to do so, "We're <br />,just a conduit," Mr, Phillips said, Mr. Patrick acknowledged that the formation of <br />partnerships in Orange County to address educational access programming is an <br />extra-franchise issue, What's relevant to the franchise is to secure Orange <br />County's right to control the programming, he said, <br />In reply to a question from Ms. Harvey, Mr. Phillips explained that the <br />Cooperating Raleigh College Consortium (NC State, Meredith, others) programs <br />educational access in Wake County, and in Durham County the public school <br />system programs the educational access (currently a bulletin board only). <br />The parties opened discussions on how the capital expenditures related to <br />providing PEG access channels would be paid for. Mr. Patrick said that there <br />might be tradeoffs across the length of the franchise and TWC's options regarding <br />capital expenditures. He asked TWC to propose some options that would meet <br />both Orange County's and TWC's needs. Ms. Harvey added that she would like to <br />see language proposed for passing through some PEG access costs to subscribers. <br />