BERNE — Despite Berne Supervisor Dennis Palow’s stated wish to use a contract negotiation as leverage to boost town revenues, the town’s proposed franchise agreement with the cable company Spectrum would leave the franchise fee the same as it was over two decades ago, while removing a clause that would obligate the company to build new infrastructure in certain areas. 

The previous agreement had been signed in 1991 and expired in 2001, according to a copy of the contract The Enterprise received from the town through a Freedom of Information Law request. 

The expired contract featured a 3-percent franchise fee — meaning the town receives 3 percent of the revenues generated by the company within Berne — plus a requirement that cable service be made available in all areas where there is a household density of 12 homes per cable-mile. 

Although the agreement expired more than two decades ago, the contract is still in effect under both the Federal Cable Act and state law, Spectrum Vice President of Communications Lara Pritchard told The Enterprise. 

Palow had said at the town board’s April meeting that Spectrum reached out to the town to alert Berne to the fact that the old agreement had expired. Deputy Supervisor Thomas Doolin added that Berne figured Spectrum “must have gotten audited by somebody.” 

Pritchard, however, said that the contract situation was “not a discovery, rather a a routine reach-out to the town.” 

Former Supervisor Kevin Crosier, who was in office when the last agreement expired, told The Enterprise that the town board at the time decided not to sign a new agreement because the proposal then would have raised or eliminated the 12-household density threshold for new infrastructure. 

In addition to giving up the threshold, the currently-proposed contract does nothing to increase the amount of money the town would receive from Spectrum, despite Palow suggesting that a new contract would be a way to get more money from cable service in the town. He said at the April meeting that the town has been receiving around $18,000 annually through the agreement. 

“I am going to negotiate more money because, if we’ve been collecting $18,000 for 20-something years, it should be going up,” Palow said. “Because we didn’t have a new contract, they’ve just been giving us $18,000, so we probably could have been getting more money.” 

Like the old agreement, the newly proposed one features a 3-percent franchise fee.

Palow did not respond to Enterprise questions about the negotiations or terms of the contract. 

A public hearing will be held on Tuesday, May 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the senior center, the former Foxenkill Grange hall at 1656 Helderberg Trail, before the 7 p.m. regular town board meeting.