Grandstanding Laura Mitchell

Last night’s Salisbury City Council meeting was long; but it did have its amusing moments. Not the least of these was councilwoman Laura Mitchell’s grandstanding on the issue of funding for PAC-14.

A Little History

Several years ago the city decided to provide some certainty to PAC-14’s funding by adopting a formula. PAC-14 would receive 20% of the franchise fee received by the city. After a few years it was discovered that the city had overpaid PAC-14, to the tune of $100,000. Rather than admit a mistake and move forward, the Barrie Comegys council, in their less than infinite wisdom, decided to bump the percentage from 20% up to 30%.

During this year’s budget deliberations a move was made to bring the percentage back to 20%. At the time, Mitchell objected (rightfully so) because the city was bound by ordinance to pay 30%. A compromise was struck which gave PAC-14 funding at 30% for two quarters and at 20% for the last two; giving the council time to change the funding formula ordinance.

Back to Laura’s World

Mitchell started off her little three act play by arguing that we should, “forget everything that happened in the past”. Well, I would too if I were Mitchell. For starters, I would want people to forget that I had just gone back on my word to support this funding compromise. But hey, this is Laura’s World!

Mitchell then made one of her few valid arguments on this subject – the city would be stripping PAC-14 of a third of their city funding after they had already made their budget for the year. Oh wait! The “numbers lady” messed up on her ciphering a bit.

Under the proposed bill PAC-14 would lose 16.7% of its funding from city. It’s just over 16 grand. I’ll admit that it’s a healthy chunk for an outfit the size of PAC-14.

Unfortunately for Mitchell, what started off as an error in arithmetic just became a hole that Mitchell wanted to dig deeper and deeper.

What’s a Franchise Fee For?

Mitchell then proceeded to lecture us that the franchise fee was supposed to go to two places – roads and the PEG channel(s) – which is PAC-14 in our case. They dirt was flying!

The FCC, the federal body that governs cable companies, says that a city or county MAY use part of its franchise fee to fund one or more PEG channels. Notice the word “MAY”; not MUST. Franchise fees are supposed to be used to compensate a municipality for “right of way”. This may include roads, but in the city of Salisbury usually means telephone or power polls.

Roads & PAC, PAC & Roads, Oh My!

BUT … Mitchell was on a roll. Believing that she saw a political opportunity, she now proclaimed that she would only support legislation which guaranteed that the franchise fee would be used for PAC-14 or road maintenance ONLY.

It sounds so GREAT! There are just a few problems. First, money is fungible. You would think that someone of Mitchell’s self-professed financial acumen would understand this. Second, road maintenance comes out of the general fund. Therefore, BY DEFINITION, all of the funds from the franchise fee are being used for PAC or for roads maintenance.

BUT … Mitchell was STILL on a roll.

It’s For the Children

Attempting to pull every trick out the hat she could think of, she now went for the tried and true liberal punt – the touchy, feely rhetorical question (ranks right up there with, “It’s for the children”). “Isn’t PAC-14 worth $99,000?” In a vacuum, of course it is. As someone who has lobbied the county council to provide more funding for PAC-14 I most definitely think that it’s worth a whole lot more. However, the rest of us don’t live in a vacuum … only in Laura’s World.

Since the Salisbury taxpayer doesn’t live in Laura’s vacuum, they should ask another question: Why should I (as a city taxpayer) fund PAC-14 at a substantially higher level than the county taxpayers who don’t live in Salisbury.?

Granted, some of those county taxpayers don’t live where Comcast is available. However, most do.

Under the modified funding scheme promoted by a majority of the council, Salisbury will still fund PAC-14 at a rate 25% higher than the entire county ($82,500 vs. $66,096). In Laura’s World the Salisbury taxpayer would be funding PAC at a 50% higher rate than those of us who live just outside the city ($99,000 vs. 66,096).

Like all liberals, Mitchell loves to ask questions and make pronouncements. I wonder if she would answer a few questions instead:

Since her opposition to changing the funding formula will require a budget amendment, perhaps she can tell us who should be fired? Which employees should now have to endure furlough days again? What service(s) should be cut? Should the city give back the ambulance that it just agreed to purchase?

You see, in Laura’s World, political grandstanding may not have consequences. In the real world it most definitely does.