Several notable actions were done by the Redding City Council Tuesday night. The council adopted an ordinance that basically takes away its right to regulate cable tv franchises in the city. The current contract with Charter Spectrum will terminate in December, and because of new regulations at the federal level the city can no longer negotiate the fees it charges for those services. It will receive five percent of the gross revenue within its jurisdiction from the cable company and an additional one percent for the government and educational channels it requires. These fees are mandated by the Federal Communications Commission and are not negotiated by the city as they were previously. The city can still mandate that the cable service be made available to any new areas that are added to the city limits.
The city also committed $500,000 toward a project at Turtle Bay known as the “Garden of Lights” which will kick off in the 2020 holiday season. The money will be given in two increments and will come from the transient occupancy tax with the hopes of attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city.
Finally the council voted to move its closed session to the beginning of the meeting instead of the end. The last time it held closed session prior to the meeting was in 2005.