The city invited anyone who wanted to speak to give their thoughts on the performance of cable provider Breezeline at a hearing last week.

Costs, service quality and a concern about lack of competition were the major themes.

The company and the city are re-negotiating a franchise agreement that gives Breezeline access to city rights of way and the city about $80,000 in various and sundry fees.

The city hired outside counsel, the Cohen Law, to handle the negotiation.

City Manager Mike Holtz said Breezeline and the city’s counsel have responded to the concerns raised last week.

He shared those responses with the Times Observer.

Up front, the city’s counsel, Mike Roberts, noted that “pricing cannot be regulated by the City pursuant to federal law” and that any streaming offered by the company is an internet-based service and falls outside the scope of the franchise agreement.

“Any outages of the cable system will be subject to strict customer service requirements and technical specifications,” Roberts said. “The agreement will further provide for refunds to subscribers affected by significant outages.”

He also concurred with something Holtz said in the meeting — that franchise agreements like this “cannot be exclusive.”

“Franchise agreements are required by federal law,” he added. “A cable operator cannot legally provide cable service in a municipality without obtaining a franchise agreement.”

An additional concern called for a Breezeline office in Warren.

“Pursuant to Section 4.1 of the current Agreement, Breezeline is required to maintain a location that is ‘conveniently located within the city,’ “ Roberts said. “We can certainly look to strengthen this requirement in the renewal agreement to address such issues.”

Concerns were also raised about what regional channels are available and whether the viewing of Buffalo Bills’ games will be affected this fall.

“Carrying of regional channels such as this is subject to broadcast agreements between the channels and their providers, as well as ‘blackout’ restrictions imposed by sports leagues,” Roberts said. “The City does not have control over which channels are carried on Breezeline’s system.”

Fran Bradley, Breezeline’s director of government affairs, told the city that staff reached out or attempted to reach out to the people who commented at Monday’s hearing.

“Franchise renewal is the best opportunity for municipalities to assert their rights with respect to their cable operator,” the city’s legal counsel said in a statement, “and to obtain important benefits in return for granting the cable operator the right to use its public right of way.”

What kind of benefits might that include?

According to Cohen, benefits that can be negotiated include customer service standards, protections of the right-of-way, legal protections and ensuring a “state-of-the-art cable system.”