The Bethlehem City Council met on Tuesday to vote on several topics including granting Comcast a franchise and reassigning the Bethlehem Parking Authority from the Council Public Safety Committee to the Community and Economic Development Committee.
Comcast
Tuesday’s vote marked the final passage of Bill 44-2024 which grants Comcast of Southeast Pennsylvania, LLC a cable television franchise system in the city of Bethlehem.
When a city grants a franchise to a cable company, it allows the company legal permission to build and operate its cable network within the city’s boundaries, according to the Gettysburg Pennsylvania website.
Comcast can use public streets to build its cable network in exchange for an undisclosed fee to the city of Bethlehem.
The ordinance’s unanimous passage shifts Bethlehem’s cable landscape, currently dominated by two providers, Astound and Service Electric.
According to Companies Market Cap, Comcast is the world’s third-largest cable TV provider by revenue, behind China Mobile and Verizon.
The cable company claims to have 63 million homes and businesses on its network, which makes its fiber footprint larger than the top three telecom companies combined.
While Astound and Service Electric have been competing for years, the introduction of Comcast’s Xfinity network will foster new competition.
The bill was passed by Councilmember Kiera Wilhelm and Councilmember Grace Crampsie Smith.
Bethlehem Parking Authority
While BPA has always fallen under the Council Public Safety Committee, it will be assigned to the Community and Economic Development Committee after Tuesday’s unanimous approval.
“A lot of the things we talk about regarding the parking authority have more to do with community and economic development impacting our business community, impacting our neighborhoods, citizen’s ability to park, the parking permit structure,” said Michael G. Colón, Bethlehem council president. “The parking authority is its own unique animal.”
Councilmember Rachel Leon agreed with Colón and said the parking authority has minimal impact on public safety.
Smith proposed investigating why the department was initially assigned to public safety and expressed concern about overwhelming the committee. She said the Community and Economic Development Committee oversees nine matters while the Public Safety Committee would only oversee three of them if parking is removed.
In response to Smith’s concern, Councilmember Hillary Kwiatek said the Public Safety Committee had enough to manage even without the parking authority.
The Public Safety Committee oversees 266 out of 580 city employees and the two largest budget items, according to Eric Evans, the Bethlehem business administrator.
“While sort of the list of things under (community and economic development) is long, the scope of public safety in terms of police, fire and EMS is one of the most important kinds of responsibilities that we have as a city,” Kwiatek said.
The BPA was ultimately voted to switch to the Community and Economic Development Committee following the discussion.
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